National Championship Coaching Tree Traces Back to Kentucky

Sonny Dykes and Kirby Smart are on top of the college football mountaintop, preparing to play in tonight’s CFB Playoff National Championship. Long before they were household names, they were football guys looking to get their foot in the door. Chris Hatcher, a former University of Kentucky assistant, helped make it happen.

Chris Hatcher is best known around the Big Blue Nation as the guy who taught Tim Couch the Air Raid by drawing on napkins at a Hooters. He was a graduate assistant with Sonny Dykes on Hal Mumme’s first coaching staff at Kentucky in 1997.

Hatcher, now the head coach at Samford, was Mumme’s star quarterback at Valdosta State that won the Harlon Hill Award, given to Division II’s top college football player. Upon arriving in Lexington he quickly sought out Dykes, mostly because he was a fan of his father, Texas Tech head coach Spike Dykes. The two became roommates and sold pizzas to overnight campers at the Tubby Smith Basketball Camp to earn extra cash. They shared the story with ESPN:

“Sonny’s a hustler, always worked hard,” Hatcher said. “I had an ’84 Ford Ranger five-speed that my dad sold me for $1 when I graduated from high school. He said, ‘You know, instead of just selling pizzas to the football campers, why don’t we just load up your truck, park it in the middle of the quad and every night we’ll just sell pizza?'”

Dykes didn’t deny it, instead portraying himself as a savvy businessman.

“There were 8 slices in there,” he said. “We made ’em a hell of a deal. You could pay $1 a slice, or we’d sell ’em the whole pizza for $10.”

How Hatcher Gave Smart his First Job

After three years in Lexington, Hatcher took the opportunity to be the head coach at his alma mater, Valdosta State. He brought with him UK’s quarterback, Dusty Bonner, the UK pregame radio show analyst that won back-to-back Harlon Hill Trophies in 2000 and 2001.

The Valdosta State defense was coached by a few familiar faces, Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp. The latter was the first former Georgia Bulldog hired by Hatcher. With $8,000 left in the budget to hire one final defensive assistant, Muschamp suggested Smart.

“I knew who Kirby was because I was the quarterback coach at Kentucky for Tim Couch, and I think Kirby picked him off like three times in a game,” Hatcher said of Smart’s role in the Dawgs’ 23-13 win over Kentucky in 1997. “We knew we were hiring Kirby no matter what, because we just had that money left, but Will and I decided that it’d be good for him to come down, put the suit on and interview and do it right.”

Smart was so nervous in the interview, he forgot to put 11 players on the board when diagramming a defense. A now infamous mistake, all three still laugh at how Smart’s National Championship career took off. He’s looking to add another to his resume tonight at 7:30 pm on ESPN.

Take a closer look at one of Kirby Smart’s interceptions of Tim Couch, a play that is shown before every kickoff between the Cats and the Dogs at Sanford Stadium.

ESPN: Chris Hatcher’s Impact on Sonny Sykes and Kirby Smart