Getting to know new Florida OC Brent Pease

Who is Brent Pease and how will he fit as the new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach of the Florida Gators? While the second part remains to be seen, OGGOA attempted to get you some answers to the first question and four others by checking in with beat writer Chadd Cripe of the Idaho Statesman, who has been covering the Boise State Broncos throughout Pease’s entire tenure on staff.

QUESTION: What kind of coach do you perceive Pease to be in terms of his manner on the field and the way in which he interacts with his players?
CHADD CRIPE: “The best I can tell he’s got a very good relationship with the players. He’s a fiery guy, particularly when he was the wide receivers coach. It’s pretty famous around here that he got into it pretty good with Titus Young on the sideline at Hawai’i when Titus [Young] had decided to fly the hang loose sign when he scored touchdowns that day. I think he did it two or three times, and the last time he got a penalty for it, so the coaches were not happy.

“He definitely has a fiery side to him. My understanding of the relationship with the players is that they have appreciated what he has done for them in terms of what he has taught them and the way he’s pushed them. I actually talked to Titus the other day and he mentioned sort of how Pease helped him get where he is. You look at the players he’s coached and the results they’ve gotten. He’s coached some of the best wide receivers in the history of Boise State and gotten their best years out of them. With Kellen [Moore] this year, he got Kellen’s best season out of him. The results are very good.”

Background: Pease has coached and developed four of the best wide receivers in school history including Young, Austin Pettis, Jeremy Childs and BSU single-season touchdown record holder Tyler Shoemaker (16, 2011).

Q: Which of his attributes makes you believe Pease will be a good fit at Florida?
CC: “It’s hard for me because I don’t know the situation [at UF]. I just found out this morning that they’re planning on running Charlie Weis’s offense, which I thought was strange. The one thing that helps Pease there is, I’m not exactly sure what schemes he ran all the way through his career, but he’s worked for different coaches [at each stop]. I’m sure there wasn’t the same offense everywhere he went. Then he came to Boise State and he had to adapt to what Boise State was doing. This year he ran the Boise State offense – the same thing Boise State has been running – so I think he’s used to adapting in that way.”

Background: Head coach Will Muschamp confirmed that UF will continue running Weis’s pro-style offense, but he expects and wants Pease to have input as far as additional formations and schemes to help improve and enhance the playbook.

Q: Does Pease have any characteristics or attributes that make you believe he will not be a good fit with the Gators or is not suited to coach in the SEC?
CC: “Nothing that comes to mind, no. He’s a really good coach. He’s a really smart guy. He’s got a ton of experience. He hasn’t been a coordinator for a few years, so we haven’t really seen him as a coordinator that much – just one year – and really the offense wasn’t much different than what we have seen in the past. It’s hard to really evaluate him as a coordinator, but the results obviously were very good. The thing I go back to with him is I know how good of a position coach he was. That probably speaks volumes about his coaching ability.”

Background: In Pease’s first year at Kentucky, his offense was ranked No. 11 nationally.

Q: Even though Pease was only the coordinator in 2011, did he have a hand in the team’s game-planning dating back to when he joined the program in 2006? How does Chris Petersen use his offensive staff to plan each game?
CC: “Part of why they hired Pease is because they hired a 29-year-old, Bryan Harsin, to be the offensive coordinator. They wanted somebody with coordinating experience to work with him. The way Petersen generally does the game planning is the offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach work in the pass game and the offensive line coach and tight ends coach work on the run game. Even when he wasn’t the coordinator, Pease was working hand-in-hand with Bryan Harsin on the offensive game plan.”

Background: Though Pease was only an offensive coordinator at Boise State in 2011, he has held the position for a total of 11 years including 10 others at four different stops (Baylor, Kentucky, Northern Arizona, Montana).

Q: What was the word going around the program about Pease’s recruiting prowess? How much of an impact did he have with Boise State in that area?
CC: “That’s one of the things they’re going to miss the most about him. Because he had been at Baylor, he was kind of the front end of Boise State’s push into Texas. They’ve gotten a lot of kids out of Texas the last few years. He was the one that got that started. There has been enough guys involved now recruiting Texas that they can probably keep that going, but he’s the one that got that started.”

Background: The Broncos have 12 players from the state of Texas on their 2011 roster including six on offense, five on defense and one on special teams.

RELATED: A list of Pease’s coaching accomplishments

Photo Credit: Associated Press