Brooks: Prince Wants WR Position Finely-Tuned
February 28, 2010 | Football, B.G. Brooks
In early January, about a month after Colorado lost secondary coach Greg Brown to Arizona, Buffs head coach Dan Hawkins telephoned Prince looking for leads on a receivers coach.
Prince, working in that role for the Seattle Seahawks, had a history with Hawkins; Prince had been a three-season member (2001-03) of Hawkins' Boise State staff. As asked, Prince offered Hawkins several potential candidates and felt good about giving an assist to his former boss.
But before Hawkins had time to plunge too deep into his search, Seattle severely disrupted the process. After a 5-11 finish (never mind that it was coach Jim Mora Jr.'s first season) the Seahawks brass decided a change was necessary.
Mora and his staff were let go on Jan. 9. Prince, his wife and three children, hardly had been in Seattle long enough to discover Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.
And prior to landing in Seattle, he spent only two seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars before hooking up with Mora and heading to the opposite corner of the country.
Can you say insecure and itinerant profession? Prince can, but won't. Instead, he smiles and ticks off its joys and benefits.
With Seattle giving Prince a pink slip, Hawkins' search for a receivers coach suddenly was redirected. On his next telephone call to the Pacific Northwest, Hawkins' list of candidates had narrowed to Prince and a couple of fall-back options.
Hawkins offered him the job, as well as the title of passing game coordinator. Prince responded, "Yeah, I'd have some interest. I was going to talk to a couple of NFL teams and if that didn't work out, yeah, definitely I'd be interested."
First, though, Prince did as promised: he spoke with several NFL teams. When those talks went nowhere, the only offer on the table was Hawkins' - which was good enough for 'RP.'
"The reason I came here was because of 'Hawk,'" Prince said. "I know what he is as a person, who he is, what he's about. That's something I believed in. I had some people (say), 'They're terrible, they're terrible, yada, yada, yada.'
"But I'm going because of the guy; I believe in him and I think we can get it going. If I didn't think that, I wouldn't have come."
Plus, Prince believed his break-in period in returning to the college game after a six-year absence might be smoother because he knew much of Hawkins' staff from their previous stint in Boise.
Prince also coached for one season (2006) in Atlanta with new CU secondary coach Ashley Ambrose, an understudy (defensive technical intern) to Brown last season with the DBs. But before Brown's departure, Ambrose was set to become receivers coach, succeeding Hawkins in that role.
Prince also encountered a surprise when he signed on with the Buffs. Second-year operations assistant Ben Steele, a former NFL tight end and special teams contributor for seven seasons, was a member of the final recruiting class Prince helped assemble when he was an assistant at Fort Lewis College (1994-95).
"I didn't know he was here," Prince said.
Since arriving in Boulder earlier this month, Prince, 44, has spent time with offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Eric Kiesau "studying (pass) protections, seeing what's good and what needs to be fixed (and) concentrating more on the concepts."
On his own time, which is plentiful before his family arrives, Prince has watched tape of the players he will coach when CU opens spring practice on Saturday, March 6. He's tried to refrain from forming opinions until he gets on the field with his crew, but in viewing tape he admits, "Some guys will pop out . . . I'll see Scotty (McKnight) in there. I'll see (Markques) Simas (still suspended indefinitely) and 'Espy' (Jason Espinoza).
"Those are the main guys I've seen in there. I know we've got some other guys who are going to be contributing this year."
He mentioned Michigan transfer Toney Clemons; Kendrick Celestine, back on the team after a one-year absence; and Andre Simmons, the touted 2009 junior college signee whose debut season produced two catches for 47 yards.
Of Clemons, Prince said, "He's very athletic, can jump high and run fast . . . I'll like to see what he can do when we bring a football out there. And we've got Kendrick, Andre . . . we've got some guys who are flying around and are excited to show what they've got."
An overall goal with his group will be "seeing maybe if we can fix some of the techniques of some of these guys to help the play." That fine tuning likely will extend to the quarterbacks, directing them to make quicker reads and "get the ball out" faster, thereby reducing the potential for sacks.
In reuniting with Hawkins and some of the former Boise State staffers, Prince also found familiar offensive terminology. A big adjustment for him, though, is in the college and NFL fields.
"The pro hashes are tighter and the numbers are different," Prince said. "A lot of the things we did (in the NFL), we would use the field as landmarks. We'd run a certain route and say, 'You've got to be at the outside edge of the numbers or get to the hash.' Translating all that stuff is something I've been working on."
Fields, hash marks and numbers aside, Prince cites the obvious difference in the college and pro games: "In the NFL, they're doing football as their job. It's an all-day affair. Here, guys have to go to class and as coaches, we need to recruit also.
"But I think when we're on the practice field, at game time, doing game planning, yes, football is football."
Prince will recruit Colorado, and though he hasn't recruited since 2003, he said he relishes the return: "I didn't mind recruiting, but I know there are some things that have changed in how you recruit. It's a challenge."
A bigger and more immediate challenge will be fixing a Buffs offense that finished at or near the bottom of most of the Big 12 Conference's statistical categories. Although Prince wears the passing game coordinator title, there is no run game coordinator. Kiesau will get input from the offensive staff in that area.
"We watch tape and there are things we see . . . it'll get better," Prince promised about repairing the offense. "There's definitely some details that will get cleaned up. And these guys (players) want to get better, too - that's the key. They're all thirsting for it."
No, at 16-33 over the past four seasons, they're parched.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
