Q&A with new Kentucky safeties coach Frank Buffano
Just weeks ago the Kentucky football program announced that Frank Buffano, the program's Director of Football Operations, had been moved to an assistant coaching position working with the safeties.
As part of Cats Illustrated's ongoing series with UK's football staff, here's our Q&A with Buffano. It touches on his coaching history, influences, and much more.
CI: How are you managing this quarantine life while working?
Frank Buffano: It's obviously different for all of us, even with our kids being homeschooled. We take time in the mornings and break for lunch then get back at it a little bit. We're all doing our own work. My wife helps with the classes and I do recruiting and everything in my own space.
CI: Staying on guys academically, has that been a big part of what you've been doing?
FB: It's an adjustment with the tutoring, class, and assignments. We get a weekly report for what's coming up for our guys and we'll go over that with them to see if they need anything. Our academic staff does an outstanding job communicating with them and with us as coaches. It's a challenge. Everybody's got a unique situation at home and we're trying to help them as best as we can. It's just about making do with what you've got at this time.
CI: For seven years you were Kentucky's Director of Football Operations. That seems like a big, broad title. What were some of your more important responsibilities and roles in that position?
Frank Buffano: Well, the major part was anything team-related. Really, from our travel, our stays, daily with the nutrition factor. When I first got here a lot of the rules were basic as far as what you could feed them - snacks. That has grown into somewhat of a bigger animal to maintain, once we got into the new facility with the food piece there. Making sure all of that stuff ran smooth. I bring up a guy's name all the time, Dan Berezowitz, our chief of staff. He's done a tremendous job. We've worked well together divvying up other stuff. He was our recruiting coordinator when he came in and moved to chief of staff. In the fall it was a heavy workload for me and then you get into December, January, February helping with recruiting and handling all the other stuff during the spring and summer. The biggest piece was obviously our players and making sure they had everything they needed.
CI: I believe in terms of football you go back to 2004 with Mark Stoops when you were at Arizona as an undergrad, then a grad assistant, correct? What were you doing with them back then?
FB: I was doing anything, what any undergrad would do. Anything I could. Running to get a coffee, making a copy, whatever was asked. I sat in the corner of the meeting room with a notebook and pencil and jotted down as much as I could. All the conversations, and spending time with coach (Mark Stoops) on the field and especially in his meeting rooms. I learned how he taught stuff and picked up a lot of knowledge. That's where I really started to get educated and versed in it and learned how the preparation works from recruiting to game week. That's where I really learned and then put my style together so to speak. When you're young, you do anything. It's like any profession. You start at the bottom and find your way. You teach yourself through trial and error. That's basically what I did for five, six years, however long it was at Arizona. You're continually learning and finding different ways to do things.
CI: You coached defensive backs briefly at Youngstown and you've been close to Stoops, a defensive backs guy, for a long time. Is that why the safeties position as opposed to another was right for you?
FB: That's where I was for all those years at Arizona. That's the meeting room I was in. One spring I went to the linebacker room. When the opportunity came at Youngstown State it was just another avenue to gain knowledge on, so why not? Shoot, I'd love to coach defensive line one day. You sit there and you listen to the d-line coach in the meetings but not until you get your hands involved working with the guys do you really start understanding.
When I went to Youngstown State the head coach was Eric Wolford and (defensive back) is what he wanted me to do and teach. That's where my knowledge was from learning from Coach Stoops at Arizona. At one point he asked if I wanted to move to linebackers and I accepted that challenge. When that happened I reached out to other guys who I knew coaching that position. You've got to have a plan. You have your daily schedule, your practice schedule during the season. Practice schedules are very different from a linebackers perspective compared to a defensive backs perspective. Knowledge is powerful. The more knowledge you have the better you can be. I took that and ran with it. I had some pretty good players at Youngstown State.
When I came back to Kentucky I just went back to the defensive backs meeting room. Obviously there was a new defensive backs coach at the time, Derrick Ansley, so I got to see his style and then obviously it was the same with Coach Clink.
CI: You were at Mooney at the same time Stoops and Vince Marrow were there. Did you know either of those guys much at the time?
FB: I probably had a little better relationship with Vince because I actually played two years with him whereas Coach Stoops was a senior when I was a freshman. I wouldn't say that I was on his radar then. It was after that through mutual friends of ours who had gone to my grade school and middle school, people I had known.
CI: Do you know what areas you will be primarily recruiting?
FB: You know, I've done some spotty stuff to help Coach Marrow out (in Ohio). I don't know if I'll continue there. It looks possible but maybe the Chicago, St. Louis areas. Wherever they need me.
CI: You've been at UK working on this from the beginning. As an outsider one thing I'm always curious about is how you balance, in recruiting, sticking with your evaluations and your process, and maybe trying to get even more talented players as you have won more games?
FB: I think you always target the top guys. Obviously we had to go through some recruiting pains at the beginning, but we don't tag guys with stars. We evaluate guys. We recruit them as hard as we can until we know we're not in it. To say that all of a sudden we're going up to recruit different players, I don't know anything about stars. I know what individuals we like in our recruiting areas and you go after the best guys you can. With our stadium renovation and facility I think that helps you. It makes it more attractive to the young men you're recruiting, having those bells and whistles. But we evaluate at a high level and we always have. Winning solves a lot of things.
CI: I had heard that you've done some off-campus recruiting for Kentucky through a waiver when John Schlarman wasn't able to go out on the road for a time, correct?
FB: Yes, that's right.
CI: But you had already been recruiting when you were at Youngstown so that wasn't new to you.
FB: That's right. I've recruited Northeast Ohio since 2010, so 10 years now. I know a lot of those high school coaches up in the Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown, Warren areas, even down into Columbus.
CI: Davonte Robinson missed last season and in his absence there were guys like Yusuf Corker and Quandre Mosely who stepped up. How would you assess the play of those guys last season?
FB: I think they stepped up. I think the whole group stepped up. Even the corners. Two years ago we had five guys and all those guys left. Coach Clink and Coach Hood did an outstanding job of getting those young guys ready to play. Those three guys worked their butts off. There are several others to mention and you want to mention them all but they did an outstanding job of pushing one another. There was a competition amongst them. When one of your fellow teammates goes down with an injury you've got somebody else who's ready to go.
CI: Without getting into specifics, does someone like Davonte have everything he needs since he's rehabbing and health facilities are limiting things like elective procedures?
FB: Yes he does. That's our training staff. Gabe (Amponsah) is our head trainer and he does an outstanding job of making sure everybody has the resources they need.
CI: So with Robinson returning, now you have more returning depth and experience than you otherwise would have. How comfortable are you with the depth you have back there?
FB: Yeah, I'm absolutely comfortable with our depth. You need it in this conference. This conference is physical. It'll beat you up. It all goes back for me to a young man at Arizona. He was a safety who never thought he'd play. All the talent in the world. At the time he wasn't getting playing time but on one play, in one instance, he was thrown into the fire. What was good about it was he prepared, even though he was down, and that's the example I've used everywhere with anybody. Depth is very important. That depth helps the competition. Nothing's going to be handed to you. That's the way Coach Clink and Coach Hood ran the room and that's the way we'll continue to run it. We came in this spring and there was no depth chart in our minds. It was wide open. Let's put the ball down and go to work. Let's see where we're at.
CI: You get Jalen Geiger in your room now since he's moved to safety from corner?
FB: Absolutely, excited to coach him. Moses Douglass, Joel Williams ... excited to work with all of those guys. Taj Dodson is a guy who goes unnoticed but he played in the Florida game. We've got a great great of safeties and corners and I'm very blessed and lucky to have been a part of it for seven years and very excited to be able to be even more hands-on with it.
CI: Somebody like Taj Dodson surprised a lot of people, maybe surprised me, because I wasn't expecting him to play as a true freshman and before his injury or whatever kept him out he was higher on the depth chart than I expected.
FB: It's sad that he surprised you. He didn't surprise us. He has the talent. We just saw that he was a good football player. He's knowledgeable. He's got the size we're looking for and he committed to working hard and doing the right things. All those guys are good in the classroom which is a huge help. He does go unnoticed, but he won't for long.
CI: Aside from Stoops, who have been some coaches or football people in the profession who have been very influential or important to you?
FB: Obviously Mike Stoops, his brother. I really had to get his approval to come on (at Arizona) and have that opportunity as an undergrad. He was the head coach at the time. Tim Kish was the linebacker coach there. Eric Wolford gave me my first opportunity and a real full-time job. I'm indebted to him for life for what he did there at Youngstown State. He's a real good guy. There are guys on the staff who had been here before, a number of them. This business seems like it's large but it's a small network of guys who love football and love teaching kids, so I've taken a little bit from everybody.