By Isaac Hillis MTN Sports Reporter April 28, 2021 Brent Stockstill, the current wide receivers coach at Middle Tennessee State University, is in his first year of coaching under his father head coach Rick Stockstill. With this comes many challenges but just like every passing record at MTSU, he plans on crushing it. Stockstill graduated MTSU in 2018 where he ended his career as the MTSU record holder in passing yards with 12,495, touchdown passes with 106, passing yards per game with 277.7, completions and attempts with 1,055 to 1,610, along with nineteen 300 yard passing games.
Given all of his accomplishments as a player, Brent is in the very early stages of his coaching career. In 2019 he was hired by Lane Kiffin at Florida Atlantic University as an offensive player personnel. While there he worked under offensive coordinator Charlie Wise Jr., the youngest coordinator in modern D1 history. In 2019 Stockstill would follow Charlie Wise Jr. to the University of South Florida where he got the opportunity to coach under Jeff Scott, who formerly coached under Dabo Swinney. He served as the offensive quality control analyst during his time at USF, before coming back to his hometown to be the wide receivers coach alongside his father.
“I always wanted to coach. I grew up a coach's kid so for me that's all I knew, so I knew the minute I was done playing I wanted to go into coaching,” said Brent Stockstill.
Rick Stockstill says his son has always dreamed of the opportunity to coach football.
“He’s wanted to coach all his life, from a really young age, probably first or second grade he knew he wanted to coach,” said Rick Stockstill.
With all of these blessings growing up a coach's kid, playing for your father, and coaching alongside him comes with challenges, said Brent Stockstill. “The highs are just as high but you have to experience the lows as well where you did not only let your team down, you let your head coach, which is your dad down. That can suck at times."
Coaching his son, Rick Stockstill expresses how much it was able to grow his relationship with his son, who he always pushed to work his hardest.
“It just strengthened our relationship, because we were able to experience a lot of things that's not everyday father-son experiences,” said Rick Stockstill.
He also expresses how critique is key to pushing Brent to work harder and strive forward.
“I told him in the beginning when he came here. You can win the Heisman Trophy or you can never come off the bench.”
Brent Stockstill will be given the opportunity to learn more from his father, but also from new offensive coordinator Brent Dearmon, who previously was the offensive coordinator under Les Miles at the University of Kansas. Dearmon is looking forward to sharing his knowledge with Brent, who he is excited to work with given Brent’s success at the university as a player.
“It's been great to walk into the building everyday with a guy whose face is plastered all over the building. He's got every record in school history,” said Dearmon.
Dearmon is also looking forward to working with Brent for his versatility and his wide range of football knowledge.
“It's been awesome. When I get a recruit on the phone to talk about quarterback play I usually go to Brent, cause he's the best to ever do it here. It has really helped me out cause he teaches our receivers from a quarterback standpoint. So our receivers know more football than most receiver rooms, because we got a quarterback in the room that's coaching those guys up,” said Dearmon.
Moving forward in his coaching career Brent’s main goal is to learn as much as he can from the people around him, and not to look too far into the future.
“My main goal since I was a player was to be where my feet are. In this profession a lot of times people get going too fast and they are always looking ahead of what's next, but they forget to be in the moment. I have tried to cherish each moment, and that's my mindset coming back here.”
Rick Stockstill follows this up by saying,”I always tell him to do the best you can at where you're at. Be the best coach and best person you can be today. Continue to be a sponge and soak up everything around you.”