Posted by: Chris Vannini on February 21, 2013

When Bob Stoops took the Oklahoma job in 1999, he hired an offensive coordinator with outside-the-box thinking in Mike Leach, and the Sooners were quickly turned around.

Mark Stoops hopes he has the same with Neal Brown. Mark joined The Tim Brando Show on Thursday, and Brando brought up the comparison to his brother's choice.

"There are some similarities," Mark Stoops said. "I didn't really plan it that way, but as I started looking at offensive coordinators and offenses, it was very important to me to hire somebody that had a plan. Whatever his system was, he knew his system top to bottom. He had the answers. He knew what to do and he's been there and done that.

"Then as you start to look at Neal with the connections to Kentucky and the heritage all the way back and with the people here and Kentucky and what they like, I though tit was a perfect fit. I'm very excited to bring Neal in and run this style of offense."

For more crazy connections, Brown comes to Kentucky from Texas Tech. Leach went to Oklahoma from Kentucky and then went to Texas Tech. Is there a "Seven Degrees of the Stoops Family" game?

Mark Stoops takes over Kentucky at a time where Louisville is coming off one of its best ever seasons under Charlie Strong. Stoops was asked if the two programs can both be strong. Having different goals in different conferences may help that.

"I never really looked at it that way. I believe we can," Stoops said. "With Charlie and myself, we know the importance of our game and we know the important of winning that game. But we also know we're in separate conferences and we've got a lot of work to do besides beating each other.

"There are 11 other games outside the bowl and (the rivalry).  It's very important. We understand that, but we've got a lot of other things to do than beat each other."

Below is Stoops' signing day press conference.

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Chris Vannini is the lead writer for CoachingSearch.com and has covered Michigan State sports for The State News, The Oakland Press and MLive.com. He writes a weekly column for the Detroit Free Press on behalf of SB Nation. Vannini lives in Big Ten country, so his foot speed is far from SEC caliber, but his pulse on coaches is hard to match. Be sure to follow @CoachingBuzz on twitter and send your feedback to chris@coachingsearch.com