ANN ARBOR — Bob Shoop was hired by Michigan as a safeties coach in January. He returns to the Big Ten after a two-year stint (2014-15) as defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Penn State.
Shoop served as Tennessee’s defensive coordinator from 2016-17.
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Following his tenure in Knoxville, the veteran coach – known for his 4-3, two-high look that applies pressure – was defensive coordinator at Mississippi State for the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Shoop joined the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days” to discuss coaching at Michigan, the Big Ten set to play conference-only games in 2020 and a need for sports after the coronavirus pandemic has taken place in the U.S. since mid-March.
“We need sports,” Shoop said. “I am a sports fan first of all, and through quarantine I must have watched every game that came on the Big Ten Network, whether it be Coach (Jim) Harbaugh playing quarterback in the 80s, to the Woody (Hayes) versus Bo (Schembechler) games in the 70s, to what have you.
“I think people are craving live sports – anything is better than nothing. As long as we can do it safely, safe for both our student-athletes and our coaches and their families.”
Shoop’s son, Jay, is a redshirt junior defensive back at Tennessee. As a parent, along with COVID-19 ongoing, the Michigan safeties coach remains in close contact with his son at Tennessee.
“Certainly I am keeping an eye on things at Tennessee,” Shoop said. “That’s less as a coaching role and more of a parent role there. I talk to my son, Jay, there everyday. I had two years there, like everyone that is a Vol fan, I wish we would have won more games at times, but I really enjoyed my experience there. I pull for them.
“I think Coach (Jeremy) Pruitt has done a great job. I think Coach (Phillip) Fulmer has done a great job reinvigorating the pride and enthusiasm into the program. I certainly wish them nothing but the best, and I know they have their protocols and we have ours.”
The NBA is set to return and finish its season in a bubble-type protocol in Orlando, Florida. Shoop discussed if a bubble-type setup could work with college football, having coaches, student-athletes, strength staff, trainers and managers stay in a dorm on campus and remain isolated to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“To make this work, the bubble-aspect of things, the student-athletes on our teams are not professional athletes,” Shoop said. “To put them into a dorm, separate from the rest of the student-body, to minimize their contact with others, where they are in the dorm, whether they are in the athletic building, they probably have to take their classes virtually – if you are going to do something like that we’ve got to be disciplined, we’ve got to be vigilant, we got to practice social distancing, we got to wear masks.”
Another aspect to the 2020 campaign, a season that is already reduced in the amount of games being played, is having student-athletes’ eligibility being frozen this academic year.
Shoop mentioned that having eligibility frozen “makes sense.”
“This is nobody’s fault,” he said. “It’s the times that we are dealing with now. First and foremost, whatever we decide has to be safe for our student-athletes, their families and our coaches and our families. It’s got to be fair, too. Anything we can do to continue to make the experience positive.”
The entire interview with Shoop can be listened to here or below.
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