The Wednesday Rewind: Offseason of Change in the Pac-12

Throughout life, change is inevitable. Our ages change, our bodies change, our relationships change, our jobs change. For the most part, the success each person has in life is largely attributed to how that person handles change.

The college sports landscape is a sea of change. With every passing season, coaches come and go; athletes sign, transfer, graduate or get cut. Some get injured, others get tired. The only constant is change.

This offseason has been one of historic change for college football fans from coast-to-coast. Urban Meyer makes his return to the sidelines and continues his ascent upward, from Utah to Florida to THE Ohio State University. Joe Paterno has been replaced with Bill O’Brien; Howard Shellenberger with Carl Pellini. Bobby Petrino crashed and burned, literally, and was run out of Fayetteville. Mike Sherman: gone. Greg Schiano: gone. Butch Davis, Houston Nutt, Ron Zook, and Turner Gill: all four will continue their careers elsewhere.

On the verge of the 2012 college football season, this change is no more evident than in the Pac-12 conference. Just this year alone four football programs have new leadership: Arizona, Arizona St., UCLA and Washington St. Since the end of the 2006 season, no conference has seen more overall overhaul within the coaching ranks than the Pac-12.

• 2006: Dennis Erickson replaced Dirk Koetter at Arizona St. and Jim Harbaugh took the reins from Walt Harris at Stanford.
• 2007: UCLA replaces Karl Dorrell with Rick Neuheisel, while Washington St. ends the disappointing Bill Doba era by hiring Paul Wulff.
• 2008: Mike Bellotti steps down as head coach of Oregon and is replaced by Chip Kelly and just a little further up I-5, Tyrone Willingham’s historic season at Washington paves the way for Steve Sarkisian.
• 2009: Pete Carroll heads to the NFL and USC tabs Lane Kiffin as its next head coach.
• 2010: Jim Harbaugh gets wooed away from Stanford by the San Francisco 49ers, after just three seasons, and David Shaw becomes the third Cardinal head coach in five season.
• 2011: Mike Stoops, Dennis Erickson, Rick Neuheisel and Paul Wulff, were all fired and replaced by Rich Rodriguez, Todd Graham, Jim Mora and Mike Leach, respectively.

Let me do the quick math for you all – that’s 12 head coaching changes in just six years; 13 if you include the firing of Dan Hawkins and the hiring of Jon Embree at Colorado after the 2010 season, right before the Buffaloes joined the Pac-12.

What does this all mean for the conference and the national football scene? Above all else, the most important part of a new regime is the change in energy. The four programs that fired their coaches were wallowing in mediocrity the past couple years. What better way to counteract that negative consistency then with a change in leadership and a better hope for the future.

I’ve played through three head coaching changes throughout my athletic career – two in high school (both football and basketball) and one in college (football). And that doesn’t even include the constant rotation of assistant coaches I dealt with at Western Washington.

Every coach brought with him a new philosophy, new ideas, new coaches and, at the college level, new recruits. The most contagious addition, though, is the new energy that comes with a hungry new coach trying to instigate a new path to success.

I grew up in Seattle, smack in the middle of Husky country, and I watched as Husky head coach Jim Lambright’s energy waned in the late 1990’s. The hiring of Neuheisel in 1999 brought a new fire to the Washington program and shortly after the coaching change the Huskies won the Rose Bowl.

After Neuheisel’s unceremonious departure, the Huskies failed twice in trying to match the success of the Neuheisel era, first with boring ol’ Keith Gilbertson and second with the no-nonsense, no-winning Tyron Willingham. It wasn’t until they hired Sarkisian away from USC that they finally found that young, hungry head coach ready to inject new life into a fledgling program.

Although I lived in Husky country, my heart really lay across the state in Cougar country as a fan of Wazzu. When Mike Price left for Alabama, the Cougars scrambled to find his replacement. It was important that they find someone who could adapt to the unique surroundings of Pullman, Wash. and maintain the positive energy Price left in his wake.

Tagging Bill Doba, Price’s replacement, as the next Cougar head coach seemed like the right choice at the time. But after a successful first couple seasons that included a Holiday Bowl victory over Texas, it was quickly evident that Doba wasn’t the right man to continue the success that preceded him.

In an attempt to tap into the unique atmosphere of the Palouse, the Cougars hired Paul Wulff, a former Cougar offensive lineman, hoping he could achieve the same success at the FBS level that he had at FCS Eastern Washington.

Some Cougar supporters will say Wulff wasn’t given enough of a chance to rebuild a program decimated by Doba’s inability to recruit. Others will point out that rebuilding takes time at the collegiate level, and Wulff should have been allowed one more season to prove that he could finally win with a team made up entirely of his recruits.

I say Wulff didn’t have the energy to match what Sarkisian brought to Washington. Sure, he played for the Cougars, but Wulff clearly wasn’t the right fit. With Leach, the Cougars finally found the perfect replacement for Price – a highly successful coach who, frankly, should still be coaching Texas Tech and whose arrival in Pullman finally puts Washington St. back in the spotlight.

“I’ve been around a long, long time and I believe this is unprecedented energy in our fan base,” Washington State athletic director Bill Moos said. “That’s what I told you I expected but this has exceeded what I expected.”

After just four wins last season and 40 losses in four years, nearly 11,000 fans showed up for April’s spring game. Leach has not coached a single game and yet there are already plans for a Leach bobblehead giveaway before the Cal game in October. The Pac-12 should hope that Leach can have immediate success in Pullman because it will help strengthen the conference on the national scale.

The same hopeful energy spreading throughout Pullman is also being felt at Arizona, Arizona St. and UCLA as well.

From SBNation.com (Arizona)

"Rich Rodriguez has Arizona Wildcats fans excited once again for football season. After an inconsistent and mostly-frustrating Mike Stoops era, ‘RichRod’ brings a new energy and hunger to the program.Season ticket sales are up, as is hope and optimism for that elusive Rose Bowl bid. There will be bumps along the way, but coach Rodriguez’s numbers speak for themselves. And now that he has transplanted nearly his entire coaching staff from his days at West Virginia — days where he led the program to the highest of highs in school history — you can only feel the ‘Cats are in good hands."

From AZCentral.com (Arizona State)

"[Todd] Graham has been a tireless ambassador, shaking hands and yapping away until he literally lost his voice in training camp. He’s impossible to dislike, and after bailing on his players in Pittsburgh, I certainly tried.Can he change the business of football in the Valley?Graham absorbed criticism from previously jilted fan bases and did so without wincing. He projected strength. He instilled new slogans and catchphrases and traditions. He’s selling the program hard and coaching even harder."

From DailyBreeze.com (UCLA)

"The stated goals as [Jim] Mora puts his stamp on the program are toughness, discipline and togetherness. It is easy to suggest these characteristics have been missing during the past nine seasons, only three of which have been winning seasons.Missing during this discussion is a basic point – coaching and talent played a role in the decline and fall of Bruin football. Success for this team will pin the recent past mainly on the coaching staff.Mora was impressive in blue shirt and gold tie when he was introduced as the latest savior in Westwood. No popping off of any sort. Just look you straight in the eye and provide uncluttered answers."

The common thread among these four programs with new leadership is the new, hopeful energy that comes with a new regime. Each program has the same goal: finish the season with more wins than losses, make it to a bowl game (perhaps even a BCS game) and win the conference.

By season’s end, the team that achieves the most success will be the team that best handles the change in leadership and the program that effectively harnesses the contagious energy of their new head coach.