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Old 03-17-2010, 07:01 PM   #1
swg
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Players like approach from Jones

The first thing University of Cincinnati football coach Butch Jones did when he met with his new players in December was to write his cell phone number on the board and tell his players that they could call him whenever they needed to.

With that small gesture, he quickly differentiated himself from his predecessor, Brian Kelly.

“Coach Jones is more of a player-friendly coach,” said sophomore defensive back Drew Frey. “He has an open door policy, which is really good for the team. I feel like I know my head coach. I’ve had conversations with him. He’s worked with the defense. Brian Kelly was a great coach, (but) he had a businesslike persona about him. He was strictly business.”

The first day of spring practice under Jones on Wednesday at Nippert Stadium was a spirited affair. It began with a lot of chest-bumping, even from Jones, and some music to get the blood flowing. But a lot of work got done, too, with the session extending more than a half hour past its scheduled conclusion.

And at the end of practice, the players lined up and shook hands before assembling for a few words from Jones.

“The intensity is a lot higher with everything that we’re doing,” said quarterback Zach Collaros.

Jones said he was surprised by the reaction he received during that initial meeting for simply giving the players his cell phone number.

“It’s just little things like that maybe Coach Jones doesn’t see, but we see because we had no contact with Coach Kelly,” Frey said. “A lot of times to meet with Coach Kelly you had to schedule a meeting. But with Coach Jones, whenever he’s up in the office, we can just knock and say hi and ask him questions. He’s shown day in and day out that he cares about us.

“I’m not knocking Coach Kelly. He’s a great coach. It’s just two different styles. Personally, I like the more open style but that doesn’t have anything to do with winning games.”

Senior running back John Goebel described Jones as more down to earth than Kelly.

“Coach Kelly is very good at talking to the media,” Goebel said, “but I think Coach Jones is more of a one-on-one type of guy…I don’t have to always talk to him like yes sir, no sir. We can joke around with him. It’s a lot like (Mark) Dantonio when I first came in, a lot of the same characteristics.

“Coach Kelly was around a lot. You might not have gone up to his office. It wasn’t that we had to make an appointment with him, but now with Coach Jones it’s like he wants us to come in. It’s like he’s inviting us to come in. Before, we could if we wanted to, but it wasn’t openly spoken about.”

For Jones, being accessible to his players is just business as usual. To him, it just makes sense to have a personal relationship with the players he wants to go to battle for him every week.

“If these kids are going to lay it on the line for you each and every day, they have to know that you’re in it with them,” Jones said. “The more that you know about an individual the more you can push them on the field and they know that you care about them.”

As Frey pointed out, though, being more open and friendly as a coach doesn’t necessarily translate into wins. Kelly’s approach resulted in back-to-back Big East championships and left some high standards for his successor.

Jones begins his UC tenure with a core of returning players who grew accustomed to winning under Kelly. And that’s a huge advantage for a new head coach.

“I like our kids’ mentality,” Jones said. “The mind-set is they expect to win. That’s a great thing. We’re not coming in here and also trying to build a mentality or a confidence to win. They know how to win because they’ve proven that.”Wednesday was a good start toward maintaining that mind-set.

“We just decided we’ve got to buy in,” Goebel said. “We’re in a full-speed, sprint ahead. We’re not taking this as a marathon. We’re going as hard as we can go right now. Today we’re trying to win the Big East championship.”

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...eview+of+Jones
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