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Talks about his life, work ethic, and about how he and his staff have overcome negative recruiting by other schools inside their home state:
NOW STOOPS' ASSOCIATE head coach and recruiting coordinator, Marrow remembers getting the call from Stoops one day and how Stoops told him, "I think we can do something good, but I need you to come to Kentucky with me."
Marrow had reason to believe in Stoops. Their families had known each other for years. Marrow's older brothers were recruited by Stoops' uncle. Marrow and Stoops would play together as kids and then become teammates in high school in football and basketball. Marrow joked that it was Stoops' job to get him the ball and get the heck out of the way.
As the two spoke about the possibility of reuniting at Kentucky, they started talking about recruiting. Marrow looked up Lexington and its proximity to their native Ohio -- how close it was to Cincinnati, to Columbus, to Youngstown.
"Oh man," Marrow said. "I agree with you, Mark, we could do some damage."
It was difficult, leaving one friend for another, but Marrow packed his bags and hit the road in recruiting.
"At that time everyone was trying to recruit the South," Marrow said. "And to be honest, Kentucky was looking like a joke. Nobody wanted to go to Kentucky. So we made the plan to go to our home state. Let's lock down Kentucky and tell those boys in Ohio, 'Hey, you don't have to go to the Big Ten to play great football.'
"That was the message, and it paid off."
Not that it was easy, though.
One particularly uncomfortable visit stands out. Marrow was in Lagrange, Ohio, recruiting tight end C.J. Conrad when Conrad pulled out a photo. It was sent from a prominent Big Ten coach at the time and it showed a moment a year earlier when Kentucky lost to Vanderbilt 40-0. And while the score was bad enough, Marrow couldn't get over the setting; there had to be fewer than 3,000 fans in the stands.
Conrad corroborated the story. To this day, he remembers thinking of Marrow, "Who is this dude talking about this program like it's Alabama?" I'm getting recruited by a bunch of Big Ten schools, and then all of the sudden this dude from Kentucky comes in and he was hyping up Kentucky like, 'We're going to do this, we're going to do that.' I was like, 'What?' I didn't even watch Kentucky football," he said. Conrad eventually came around, committing to Kentucky over Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas and others. His 12 career touchdowns is the second most by a tight end in school history. Today, he's a graduate assistant on Stoops' staff. Since 2014, Kentucky has signed 12 top-15 prospects in the state of Ohio. Michigan has signed only eight. Two of those Ohio products, Benny Snell and Lynn Bowden, went on to become stars in Lexington and were drafted by the NFL.
How Mark Stoops brought winning -- and fun -- back to Kentucky football
Behind the passion and hard work of the "other" Stoops brother, Kentucky is 6-0 for the first time since 1950. Next up: a shot at No. 1 Georgia.
www.espn.com
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