On Tuesday, new Memphis Showboats head coach Ken Whisenhunt and UFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Daryl Johnston, met with the media for about 45 minutes (UFLBoard editor Mark Nelson covered the media call with an article here.). It was ostensibly the introduction of Whisenhunt as the new head coach of the Memphis franchise, but he and Johnston answered questions that covered a variety of topics during that time. Here are some of the nuggets of information that I found most interesting.
*Whisenhunt reached out to the UFL about the position
There’s a pessimist’s view of spring football that says any such league has to beg, borrow, and steal to get people to work for them. And according to Johnston, that was the case in the early days of the USFL. Now, as an example of how much more respected spring football has become, Super Bowl Champion coaches like Whisenhunt are the ones picking up the phones wanting to be a part of the UFL. “When Ken called, I was very, very excited and hopeful that he was calling in regards to the Memphis opening,” Johnston said. “…it was something (he said) he’d love the opportunity to compete for and be a part of the UFL moving forward.” Whisenhunt later recounted previous conversations that he and Johnston had about potentially coaching in a spring league, though it never came to fruition until now. The UFL may still be trying to find its footing among general sports fans, but it appears they’ve already made great strides in earning the respect of those who work in football.
*Prior to joining Penn State in 2021 as an offensive analyst, Whisenhunt was offered a college head coaching job, which he declined
At the time, Whisenhunt hadn’t coached in college since a stint as an assistant at Vanderbilt in the mid-’90s. Given the changes in the college landscape since then, it would’ve been a major adjustment for Whisenhunt to go from two decades in the NFL to a college head coaching position. He said he wanted to get a feel for college football first, hence taking the Penn State job and then later, becoming the special assistant to Alabama head coach Nick Saban in 2023. This also goes to show that Whisenhunt is more than just a retread that some may see him as, if he was offered what would likely have been a major college head coach job (Whisenhunt didn’t specify which school) as recently as a few years ago.
*The UFL interviewed six candidates for the Memphis head coaching job, three internal and three external
From an initial list of 12, Johnston said league management pared that down to three candidates already working in the UFL, and three from outside the UFL. Those six received formal interviews. Though he didn’t name names, it’s fair to speculate that two of the internal candidates may have been San Antonio Brahmas offensive coordinator A.J. Smith (who the league seems to be high on) and Birmingham Stallions defensive assistant Anthony Blevins (who should’ve advanced to the interview stage of the process based purely on the fact that the head coaching position he left the NFL for was eliminated in the merger). The third internal candidate is much trickier to figure out. Though none got the job, Johnston spoke highly of their performances throughout the process and rightly noted that going through that process, even if it didn’t result in them getting the position, was a positive experience for them to having moving forward in their careers.
*Current NFL assistant coaches have expressed interest in joining Whisenhunt’s staff
“I’ve had some guys who are on a current NFL team that have expressed interest” in joining him in Memphis, Whisenhunt said. I would chalk this up as “highly unlikely,” but it’s another sign that people inside the world of football are taking the UFL seriously, even if these hires don’t end up being made.
*It was a conversation with New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis that helped sell Johnston on Jim Monos as the GM of the Showboats
Johnston recounted the conversation with Loomis, the longtime general manager of the Saints, with whom Monos worked for eight years as an area scout before being hired by the Buffalo Bills as their director of player personnel in 2013. Johnston also mentioned talking to Doug Marrone, an assistant with the Saints during that time and later the head coach of the Bills while Monos was there. Both gave Monos rave reviews. For what it’s worth, this also reveals that the GM and head coach are hired separately, at least in this instance, without one getting a say in hiring the other.
*Though no longer with the Showboats, former Memphis GM Dennis Polian has offered to get the new staff “up to speed’ on the players they’re inheriting
Johnston cited this as being an example of what kind of “family” atmosphere the UFL has cultivated, one in which even those departed are willing to lend a hand to help make this venture work.
*So as to not lose players to other leagues, the UFL sat down with Memphis coaches to offer contracts for 2025 to several Showboats players from 2024
Going without a head coach or general manager for a month and a half of the off-season while other teams are signing new players and re-signing holdovers is not a way to ensure improvement for a 2-8 team. Yet, we saw on the daily transaction wire the fact that select players had re-signed with Memphis. Johnston clarified that, in order to prevent other leagues from poaching players, league personnel and Showboats coaches from 2024 made decisions to offer certain players contracts for 2025 while the hiring process for the new coach and GM played itself out. In his response from the question posed by UFL Newsroom’s James Larsen, Johnston did not address the inequity of allowing other teams to offer contracts to new players, while Memphis was not able to do so because of the absence of a general manager during that month-and-a-half period.
*Expect improvements in the UFL product in season two
It was hard not to get excited about the future of the UFL with the picture Johnston painted. In his first extended remarks of the off-season, Johnston mentioned the struggle of simply putting a product on the field in year one, given the time constraints presented by the timing of the merger of the USFL and XFL. “I think everybody felt that the ability for us, being able to have that regular cadence for a full off-season and to learn from where our shortfalls were in season one…we still found out some areas where we could do things probably a little bit more efficient, we could be better in. This full off-season is going to give us an opportunity to implement those policies and those strategies. So I think everybody is in a much more positive frame of mind. There was so much unknown last year where this year, there’s excitement of moving forward.
“I think season one was just making sure that we got football propped up and that we had the key necessary components in place to have a successful season one. But now, how far can we advance that, how far can we push that in season two. And that continues to build the excitement within the UFL family.”
