Spring Football: New Head Coaches Face Challenges

Nov 24, 2012; San Jose, CA, USA; Louisiana Tech Bulldogs head coach Sonny Dykes on the sidelines during the first half against the San Jose Spartans at Spartan Stadium. The San Jose Spartans won 52-43. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

Spring football season is starting on campuses around the country, bringing with it dreams of a prosperous autumn.

Every team enters spring football believing it can at least reach a bowl, if not contend for a conference or BCS championship. In the mid-2000s, I covered a Pac-10 program coming off one of its worst stretches in team history. But with a new head coach, felt rejuvenated. The upperclassmen talked bowl game; the underclassmen spoke of Heismans and crystal balls.

Five months later, that team would embark on a 3-8 campaign.

The moral of this springtime fable is that no team begins spring football with the mindset of the grasshopper. Everyone is an ant. Some are just less suited to build for the fall than others, particularly programs undergoing change.

First-year head coaches are taking their first real inventory on their new teams. Most enter situations that necessitate a new head coach because they just weren’t winning, and there’s often a reason why.

Much to the chagrin of impatient fan bases and administrators, program-building requires time. However, the success of first-year coaches in recent seasons

New head coaches Sonny Dykes with the Golden Golden Bears, Mike MacIntyre with the Colorado Buffaloes and Mark Helfrich with the Oregon Ducks begin in a Pacific 12 Conference that welcomed aboard four first-year head coaches a season ago.

Rich Rodriguez and Todd Graham coached the Arizona Wildcats and Arizona State Sun Devils to matching 8-5 records in Year One, each winning its bowl game. First-year UCLA Bruins head coach Jim Mora lead his team to the Pac-12 South title and gave within a possession of reaching the Rose Bowl.

Obviously, the ante’s been upped for the league’s 2013 newcomers. While Helfrich has a unique situation, taking the keys to a sports car that has zoomed to four consecutive BCS bowls, counterparts MacIntyre and Dykes inherit teams that were a combined 4-20.

Each had success in the Western Athletic Conference, Dykes at Louisiana Tech and MacIntyre with San Jose State. They have been asked to install their unique brands of high-tempo offense to match the explosiveness prevalent around the Pac.

The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs were the highest scoring team in college football a season ago, posting four touchdowns more per game than Jeff Tedford’s Cal squad. La. Tech thrived on a blend of the rush, sprinkled into the air raid offense associated with branches off the Mike Leach coaching tree.

Dykes’ challenge entering spring football is how to best implement his take on the high powered system with a program that hasn’t had a stable quarterback situation in nearly a decade. Doing so quickly is critical for Dykes to justify his $9.7 million deal with Cal, which is $4.2 million greater than the buyout it gave the most successful Golden Bear coach of all-time, Tedford.

MacIntyre’s situation is even more dire. Colorado bottomed out at 1-11. The Buffs are simply smaller and less athletic at virtually every position than their conference opposition. The university tabbed MacIntyre, because he turned around maybe the most downtrodden program in all of Division I football at SJSU.

Coach Mac scored with such talents as quarterback David Fales and a deep wide receiving corps, which allowed the Spartans to post nearly 35 points per game — double CU’s output.

National attention paid to the coaching carousel this winter was primarily on the SEC. College football’s most elite conference had an unprecedented four openings with the Tennessee Volunteers, Arkansas Razorbacks, Kentucky Wildcats and Auburn Tigers.
Dec 5, 2012; Fayetteville, AR, USA; Newly named Arkansas Razorbacks football coach Bret Bielema speaks during a press conference to announce his hiring at the University of Arkansas. Mandatory Credit: Beth Hall-USA TODAY Sports
As if pressure to win and win immediately wasn’t high enough in the Southeastern Conference, considering some of the league’s more recent first-year hires. James Franklin took perennial cellar dweller Vanderbilt to a bowl game in his debut campaign. Hugh Freeze turned the Ole Miss Rebels from a 2-10 punching bag, to a 7-6 bowl game winner and the hottest recruiting team in the country.

The real benchmark for first-year coaches in the conference was set by Kevin Sumlin, whose Texas A&M Aggies won 11 games in the entire program’s debut in the conference.

Bret Bielema, Butch Jones and Gus Malzahn all begin spring football at the helm of programs that expect victory. Bielema’s Arkansas team was in the Sugar Bowl just two years, and considered a viable SEC title contender before Bobby Petrino’s firing.

Malzahn orchestrated Auburn’s potent offense in its BCS championship-winning 2010 season, and claimed a Sun Belt Conference title his one year at Arkansas State. Jones’ tenure at Tennessee opens with some skepticism from a fan base that desperately wants to return to its longstanding, past history.

Even Mark Stoops ushers in elevated expectations at Kentucky. Coinciding with the beginning of his era are major upgrades to Wildcat football facilities.

Hope springs eternal in spring football season, but only some of the coaches overseeing new programs will bring dreams into reality.