Coaches’ winding roads intersect
Two coaching journeys will cross paths in Dallas on Saturday when Arkansas State University plays SMU at 6 p. m.
ASU Coach Blake Anderson and SMU Coach Chad Morris share the same age ( 48), home state ( Texas) and offensive backgrounds, although they made diverging career decisions more than two decades ago.
Anderson and Morris now are building reputations during their first head coaching stints, and a signature season could put either on the radar of bigger programs in the offseason.
The two coaches met when they were both offensive coordinators in the Carolinas ( Anderson at North Carolina, Morris at Clemson). After Morris earned the SMU job on Dec. 1, 2014, he called Anderson seeking perspective.
SMU had just come off a 1- 11 season — the third lowest winning percentage (. 083) in school history — and Anderson had just finished his inaugural season 7- 6 at ASU.
“There was a different approach with what he was going through,” said Anderson, who was hired at ASU after one- year stints by Hugh Freeze ( hired by Ole Miss), Gus Malzahn ( Auburn) and Bryan Harsin ( Boise State). “Arkansas State had won three conference championships when I got there, and the expectation was to win. The expectations for him was to start building something because they hadn’t won.
“I think he appreciated the perspective. He took advice from our interactions with the community, used some of the social media [ strategies]. But his approach was slower, more methodical.”
Both coaches’ rise to collegiate head coaching positions was slow and methodical.
At summer’s end in 1992, the 22- year- olds walked into separate coaching offices: Anderson, as a graduate assistant at Eastern New Mexico; and Morris, as an assistant coach at Eustace High School, which is 32 miles south of his hometown of Edgewood, Texas.
“I always say there are three ways to get into college coaching,” Morris said. “You can go to the NFL and work your way down, you can do the [ graduate assistant] route and work your way up, or you can get into high school coaching and it may take a little longer.”
Neither had the connections or athletic success to start in the NFL: Anderson had been a wide receiver at Baylor and Sam Houston State, and Morris had been a math major at Texas A& M.
That left becoming a graduate assistant — which has good connections, long hours and low wages — or high school coach — which has better wages, worse connections and demands a high level of success to reach the college ranks.
“Unfortunately, when I wanted to get into college coaching, I already had kids, I was married, and the GA route wasn’t going to be the answer for me,” Morris said. “I couldn’t do that. My wife wouldn’t let me do that. We had to win a lot of high school football games and move from there.”
Anderson was engaged to his now- wife, Wendy, and took the first opportunity he could at Eastern New Mexico.
“Wendy and I started having kids early, and we didn’t have much — didn’t make enough money,” Anderson said. “But we survived. Moved up the ladder. You try to survive in coaching, and we did what we had to do to make it.”
More than a quarter- century has passed, and Morris earned his way into collegiate coaching by compiling a 16938 record at five high schools, which included consecutive state championships at Lake Travis ( Texas) High School in 2008 and 2009. He became Tulsa’s offensive coordinator in 2010, then was the nation’s highestpaid assistant coach while at Clemson from 2011- 2014.
Anderson ascended through nine colleges, while coaching seven different offensive responsibilities. He was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Southern Mississippi when the Golden Eagles won the Conference USA championship in 2011 under Larry Fedora, who is now the head coach at North Carolina.
Morris and Anderson moved with their families like nomads.
“It’s rough — there’s nothing easy about it,” said Anderson, who has spoken often about the two seasons he spent away from coaching to rededicate his life to his family. “If you love what you do, you can chalk it up to the stories and different places. My parents are living in the same place as they always have, so it’s definitely different.”
Anderson and Morris honed their offensive minds by studying separate branches of the Spread offense, which is considered to have been created by a Texan named Rusty Russell in 1927 at a boarding school for orphaned boys.
Anderson claims lineage through the balanced philosophies of Fedora and Rich Rodriguez ( Arizona head coach), and the air raid philosophies of Mike Leach ( Washington State head coach) and Sonny Dykes ( TCU offensive analyst).
Morris sought counsel from Malzahn while the Auburn coach was still crafting his Read- Option attack at Springdale High.
During Morris’ four- year tenure as Clemson’s offensive coordinator, the Tigers set 127 offensive records and recorded the top three scoring seasons in school history.
Anderson’s ASU offenses have surpassed those of Harsin, Malzahn and Freeze, breaking school records for total offense ( 476.5 yards per game in 2014) and points ( 40 per game in 2015).
Saturday, their teams will meet for the first time.
“I have to think we’ll have plenty of opportunities like this,” Anderson said. “We’ll have long careers as coaches and our paths will cross along the way. I hope in a championship, or a bowl or both. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
“Hopefully we can build a friendly rivalry out of this.”