Brent Brennan came with props.
When he popped into the Zoom news conference to preview the Arizona Bowl, the San Jose State coach donned a bronze Spartans battle helmet. When the question came up about the “elephant in the room” — the head-coach opening at Arizona – Brennan held up a small stop sign that read: “Stop!!!! I’m climbing the mountain!!!!”
Brennan came up with that phrase back in March, when uncertainty fell upon college sports. The coronavirus pandemic became a reality in America. Like so many other coaches across the country, Brennan had to send his team home.
“We needed a way to talk about what we’re trying to do, what we’re facing — being apart, COVID. Are we gonna have training camp? There were so many unknowns,” Brennan said Monday. “So we just had to keep finding ways to climb the mountain, so to speak. It became part of my messaging with the team then.”
Whether they were facing doubters or receiving praise — whatever the potential distraction — Brennan encouraged his players to stick to that mantra. Added bonus: The Spartans play in the Mountain West Conference. It worked in multiple ways.
Despite multiple obstacles, San Jose State reached the pinnacle. SJSU defeated favored Boise State to win the MWC Championship Game. The Spartans are set to face Ball State in the Arizona Bowl a week from Thursday. A victory would give them their first undefeated season since 1939.
Brennan plans to see it through — even if he’s talking to the UA in the meantime. When asked if he’d had any contact with Arizona, Brennan gracefully sidestepped the question.
“Anytime you win, there’s going to be those questions; those things are going to come up,” Brennan said. “People in the athletics world, in the media world, all want to try and find something to talk about.
“When those conversations start, it’s really a reflection of what’s happening here at San Jose State; it’s a reflection of what’s happening with the players and what this team has accomplished, which has just been, in my opinion, nothing short of exceptional. So it’s pretty cool to be a part of that and to see this team come as far as we have.”
Brennan’s recent accomplishments and résumé make him a logical candidate for the UA job. He’s a West Coast guy, the Spartans have gotten progressively better under his watch and he’s one of nine finalists for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award.
But it’s Brennan’s connection to Dick Tomey that makes him a top candidate.
Missing his mentor
It’s no surprise that Brennan came up with a catchphrase that resonated with his team. He learned from the master.
Brennan served as a graduate assistant under Tomey in 2000, his final year at Arizona. Brennan’s younger brother, Brad, was a wide receiver on the team.
“It was a really cool time to be on the field with him; we had never played together,” said Brent Brennan, who played at UCLA from 1991-95. “I got to coach him a lot, and I was working with a really good staff of really good people.”
Tomey’s accomplishments were the stuff of legend. His sayings had become part of the vernacular in the program. The two that stuck with Brennan: “The harder it gets, the better we play” and “Football’s not complicated; people are.”
Tomey and Arizona parted ways at the end of that campaign, concluding his 14-year run at the school. But the coaching relationships Brennan formed that season, he said, “really paved the path for me professionally.”
Essentially, Brennan said, he had become part of the Tomey coaching tree.
Brennan followed Tomey’s defensive coordinator, Rich Ellerson, to Cal Poly, and worked under him there for four years. Brennan then reconnected with Tomey at San Jose State, coaching receivers, tight ends and special teams under him from 2005-09.
Tomey became a mentor to Brennan. They talked regularly after Tomey left San Jose and when Brennan became the head coach there. Brennan was among the speakers at Tomey’s memorial service in May 2019.
“He is more than my football dad. He was just a really important man to me,” Brennan said. “I was incredibly honored to speak at his service. I wish there were more speakers; I felt like I could have sat there all day and listened to people tell stories about him and what they meant to him.
“I think about Coach every day. And I think he would have loved what this team has been through. He would love ... the challenge that COVID presented teams. He would have really eaten that up and flourished in that space.
“I talk about him all the time. He’s always been a real point of reference for me as I’m building our team and getting ready for games. I miss Dick Tomey dearly. What a great influence he had on my life.”
‘Lean on Me’
Tomey undoubtedly would have appreciated the scene in the locker room at Las Vegas’ Sam Boyd Stadium after the MWC title game.
Brennan and his team gathered in a circle. They put their arms around one another and sang Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” swaying and smiling.
“That was maybe the most special moment I’ve had in my football side of my life,” Brennan said.
The ritual began in training camp in 2019. One of the Spartans started singing that song just before a team meeting. The room erupted.
SJSU was coming off a 1-11 season. The Spartans needed to lean on one another.
“We have to count on each other,” Brennan remembered thinking at the time. “We have to be accountable to each other. We have to work together. And so ‘Lean on Me’ just kind of took on a life of its own.
“Once we’d gotten back in there (into the locker room), it was really neat to be able to get everybody together, make a few comments and then have that moment.”
Niumatalolo out?
The coach who was a finalist three years ago, Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo, denied he’s a candidate for the job this time.
“There’s nothing to it,” Niumatalolo told The Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, on Monday. “I don’t know where those rumors come from … maybe because of last time, maybe because of our success as a program.”
Niumatalolo also has an association with Tomey, having played for him for one season at Hawaii. Like Brennan, Niumatalolo spoke at Tomey’s memorial service.
