Head coach Mike Locksley and new wide receiver coach Gunter Brewer have been fond of each other for years and as it turns out, Locksley made a run to hire the experienced assistant at the start of his tenure.
“It’s an interesting story because Gunter [Brewer] was the guy that I originally tried to hire when I first came in and thought we would be able to get it done, he was just leaving Philadelphia, took a job at Louisville, had some family issues going on at that time and so it's amazing how timing works,” Locksley added. For Brewer, the timing was everything when it came to finally arriving in College Park.
“I've known coach Locks for a long time and admired his work. He worked with some guys I know very closely so had a visit with him on a professional level at different times, whether it be at Alabama, Illinois, or wherever he was, Florida that particular time. Great recruiter but great coach and I had a chance to prove that,” Brewer added. “So, this time it worked out really well, so timing is everything. The situation was right, looking forward to kind of picking up and taking this thing to a different level.”
Wide receiver Rakim Jarrett is adjusting to his third wide receiver coach in his third season with the program, but he’s taken note of the personable touch that new position coach Gunter Brewer carries himself inside Jones-Hill House. “He’s an energetic guy,” Jarrett added. “He has his motto like ‘freak show’ and you step on the field, you’re freaks. That’s kind of a fun thing to hear. He comes into meetings it’s always ‘freak time’ and you’ve got to say ‘show time. He’s a fun guy, I look forward to working for him.”
After nearly two months to build bonds and connections off the field with his new players, the beginning of spring ball now gives Brewer a chance to work closer with his receivers on the field and adjust to the new style of coaching. “These guys have had an opportunity in a few weeks to get to know me but not on the field,” Brewer said. “We tried to do it off the field in offseason workouts but a player and a coach relationship, to me, is extremely important. The communication, the way you deal with things because things are gonna happen good and bad so you have to have that relationship that goes beyond just X's and O's. And that one good thing that I really admire coach [Locksley] about, is being committed to the process and being connected to the players. I've always kind of been known as a player's coach and one of those ways we like to have fun. We also want to work extremely hard and have fun doing that, too. So, over the period of time, short time I’ve been here, we've had some great conversations just about their families, what they've been through, things of that nature, some have gone through some injuries, others had a lot of success and are doing great.”
Brewer inherits a strong receiver room currently led by returning veteran Rakim Jarrett, but the newest assistant said, “the potential is unlimited with this group.” He credited co-offensive coordinator Dan Enos for “a fabulous job of building a game plan where all of them are involved and they all have a chance to be explosive,” but the deep receiver room became even stronger this offseason when Maryland added Jacob Copeland, the Florida Gators leading receiver from a season ago, to bolster the room.
“I don’t know that you’ll find a better-looking young man to play that position,” Brewer added, but spring is giving the former SEC star a chance to acclimate himself to the Terps’ offensive scheme. “He’s like me, he’s learning the offense, football is a language,” Brewer added. “Every offense has its own language.” That doesn’t mean he hasn’t impressed during his short amount of time already on campus. “You see the skillset, he's big, he's fast, he can run, he's strong so he's got all the makeup of being what you want and watching his stuff in Florida obviously, he’s pretty explosive so we want to you know, that's another piece of the puzzle that we can plug in.”