Middle Tennesee State University Athletics
Coaches Check-In Episode 7: Mark McEntire
7/17/2023 9:40:00 AM | General, Men's Golf
The MTSU Men's Golf Coach talks straight qualifying, the European recruiting pipeline and roster news on this edition of the podcast
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Blue Raider men's golf coach Mark McEntire joins GoBlueRaiders.com staff writer Sam Doughton on the Coaches Check-In Podcast, taking time out of his busy summer on the course to talk about continuing to build the momentum of his program in 2023.
Coming off an at-large selection the NCAA Tournament, McEntire talks about bringing his entire roster back in the fall, recruiting overseas, fostering internal competition and much more!
You can find excerpts of the podcast below, lightly edited for grammar, clarity and flow. The full episode is available for download or to stream at the link above, or by visiting the "Podcasts" tab under "Multimedia" on GoBlueRaiders.com.
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Your program had such a strong finish to the year, making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. Now with some distance away from it, how do you assess your program's performance?
It's funny. (Assistant Coach) Payne (Stewart) and I were talking about that the other day. The thing that we were excited about was that we got an at-large bid. From a coaching standpoint, I thought we had some really good individual performances, but I don't think we played together as a team one time. We were close a couple of times, but we never put it together. The thing that we're excited about is that everyone is returning, everybody's got some experience, everybody got the opportunity to play a few events, so we're looking forward to having some really good competition and kind of picking up where we left off last year.
That's already the headline here for me! How exciting is that prospect for you, bringing back a team that's already had so many individual accomplishments on their resume in addition to the team success?
It's one of those things, I just want to continue to keep building to the program. We've done a nice job, we've got some nice things going. I'm excited we had the (CUSA) Player of the Year, the Freshmen of the Year. I'm excited that six of our players got All-Conference Awards, so it means we've got some good depth. I'm excited to see where that depth goes in the fall for us.
Having that strength at the back of the lineup card is so crucial, particularly given the depth the team currently has. How have you tried to find that competition for those 4-5-6 spots on your lineup card week-to-week?
This semester, we did something that we've never done in 21 years, we straight qualified for every spot. We've never done it, I told Payne I'm not comfortable doing it. I don't want to do it, but we did it. We put a system in place, it worked. We had everybody get in at least three tournaments, so we have tournament averages to look back on as well. If we were in the middle of it, and we didn't know what to do, we just put them out, and the low guy won. I thought that worked really, really well.
That's got to be a bit nerve racking to not have a coaches' pick to fall back on if someone has an off day on the course.
It really does. But it does a couple of things. It really came down between Gavin (Clements), who was a junior, and our two freshmen, Luke (Perkins) and Carter (Maneth). At the time, we just wanted who was playing the best. Gavin was winning the qualifiers, we was playing good. He was giving us at least one under par round every tournament. Those other guys just need to qualify, because the lineup wasn't going to change for next year.
One recruiting pipeline that you've had a lot of success with is in Estonia, where current Blue Raiders Kevin Jegers and Markus Varjun call home. How did that avenue open up for MTSU?
Ilari Saulo was here when we came here, he did not go to Tennessee with (former MTSU Head Coach) Brennan (Webb). His national coach, David Da Silva, just kind of wanted to continue that relationship. Since Brennan took all the guys from here, he didn't have any room to continue that pipeline to Tennessee, so it stayed with us.
They've been great players. They've been fantastic students. Kevin and Markus, and even Mattias (Varjun, older brother to Markus), who transferred to VCU. Really, really proud of the way that they've come in and played and acclimated to everything. Kevin is going to leave probably one of, if not the most all-time individual wins. 4.0 student. Markus, freshman of the year, redshirted the previous year, did an incredible job. Just lost in the second round of the British Am, made it the top 32 players in the world.
I'm just really excited about those guys. They do a really nice job, the coach over there does a tremendous job with them developing. They come in and they're very polished, they know who they are. The biggest thing is it takes them a little while to get adjusted to the greens.
In the summer when they're playing back home in Europe, are they done with their rounds when you wake up in the morning sometimes?
It's funny, I normally will either Snapchat or shoot them a text message kind of before we go to bed. Sometimes they answer, sometimes they won't. But we normally wake up to a text message at about 2 or 3 (in the morning). But they're great about checking in. They're great about doing a really nice job. But they play a lot of golf over there. They play a lot more golf than our American kids do. And I don't know if that's just how good their organization is over there. I've bet you they've played in 4-5 tournaments already this year and it's not even July.
Listen to the full podcast
Coming off an at-large selection the NCAA Tournament, McEntire talks about bringing his entire roster back in the fall, recruiting overseas, fostering internal competition and much more!
You can find excerpts of the podcast below, lightly edited for grammar, clarity and flow. The full episode is available for download or to stream at the link above, or by visiting the "Podcasts" tab under "Multimedia" on GoBlueRaiders.com.
--
Your program had such a strong finish to the year, making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. Now with some distance away from it, how do you assess your program's performance?
It's funny. (Assistant Coach) Payne (Stewart) and I were talking about that the other day. The thing that we were excited about was that we got an at-large bid. From a coaching standpoint, I thought we had some really good individual performances, but I don't think we played together as a team one time. We were close a couple of times, but we never put it together. The thing that we're excited about is that everyone is returning, everybody's got some experience, everybody got the opportunity to play a few events, so we're looking forward to having some really good competition and kind of picking up where we left off last year.
That's already the headline here for me! How exciting is that prospect for you, bringing back a team that's already had so many individual accomplishments on their resume in addition to the team success?
It's one of those things, I just want to continue to keep building to the program. We've done a nice job, we've got some nice things going. I'm excited we had the (CUSA) Player of the Year, the Freshmen of the Year. I'm excited that six of our players got All-Conference Awards, so it means we've got some good depth. I'm excited to see where that depth goes in the fall for us.
Having that strength at the back of the lineup card is so crucial, particularly given the depth the team currently has. How have you tried to find that competition for those 4-5-6 spots on your lineup card week-to-week?
This semester, we did something that we've never done in 21 years, we straight qualified for every spot. We've never done it, I told Payne I'm not comfortable doing it. I don't want to do it, but we did it. We put a system in place, it worked. We had everybody get in at least three tournaments, so we have tournament averages to look back on as well. If we were in the middle of it, and we didn't know what to do, we just put them out, and the low guy won. I thought that worked really, really well.
That's got to be a bit nerve racking to not have a coaches' pick to fall back on if someone has an off day on the course.
It really does. But it does a couple of things. It really came down between Gavin (Clements), who was a junior, and our two freshmen, Luke (Perkins) and Carter (Maneth). At the time, we just wanted who was playing the best. Gavin was winning the qualifiers, we was playing good. He was giving us at least one under par round every tournament. Those other guys just need to qualify, because the lineup wasn't going to change for next year.
One recruiting pipeline that you've had a lot of success with is in Estonia, where current Blue Raiders Kevin Jegers and Markus Varjun call home. How did that avenue open up for MTSU?
Ilari Saulo was here when we came here, he did not go to Tennessee with (former MTSU Head Coach) Brennan (Webb). His national coach, David Da Silva, just kind of wanted to continue that relationship. Since Brennan took all the guys from here, he didn't have any room to continue that pipeline to Tennessee, so it stayed with us.
They've been great players. They've been fantastic students. Kevin and Markus, and even Mattias (Varjun, older brother to Markus), who transferred to VCU. Really, really proud of the way that they've come in and played and acclimated to everything. Kevin is going to leave probably one of, if not the most all-time individual wins. 4.0 student. Markus, freshman of the year, redshirted the previous year, did an incredible job. Just lost in the second round of the British Am, made it the top 32 players in the world.
I'm just really excited about those guys. They do a really nice job, the coach over there does a tremendous job with them developing. They come in and they're very polished, they know who they are. The biggest thing is it takes them a little while to get adjusted to the greens.
In the summer when they're playing back home in Europe, are they done with their rounds when you wake up in the morning sometimes?
It's funny, I normally will either Snapchat or shoot them a text message kind of before we go to bed. Sometimes they answer, sometimes they won't. But we normally wake up to a text message at about 2 or 3 (in the morning). But they're great about checking in. They're great about doing a really nice job. But they play a lot of golf over there. They play a lot more golf than our American kids do. And I don't know if that's just how good their organization is over there. I've bet you they've played in 4-5 tournaments already this year and it's not even July.
Listen to the full podcast
Players Mentioned
/ Men's Golf
/ Men's Golf
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