Getting their feet wet
Most want team to show message sunk in
What this year’s crop of new college football coaches want to see in their debuts
Dabo Swinney said that most of his first week as Clemson’s head football coach in 2008 was a blur, then and now. Swinney had been promoted to the job from his wide receivers coaching role after six games and had about three days to prepare to face Georgia Tech’s triple-option offense for the first time. Graduate assistant coaches suddenly became full-time coaches, and everybody remaining in the Tigers football program had a new job — in the middle of a game week.
But Swinney said he did remember 15,000 fans showed up for the team’s very first Tiger Walk and did recall the thrill of stepping off the bus at Memorial Stadium, touching Howard’s Rock and running down the hill for the first time.
“It was a very daunting challenge for me that particular week,” he said Wednesday. “That was an unbelievable moment for me that I’ll never forget.”
Though Swinney had the disadvantage of just a few days to get ready for his first game as head coach, he did have the experience of taking the field with the team many times in the past. The coaches entering their first games this week do not.
We asked a number of head coaches in new
jobs who are taking the field for the first time this week what they would like to see and what they hoped not to see in their games this weekend. Here, in alphabetical order, are their responses, some of which have been edited for length:
MATT CAMPBELL, IOWA STATE “I think the biggest thing for us is consistency of effort and consistency of the way we play the game of football. And I think that’s our greatest challenge since we’ve come in here, has been really reevaluating the consistency we play with and how we approach our day-to-day operation. I think we’ve made really good strides in that, and that’s why I’m really excited to watch our team play Saturday, to see how far have we come in terms of consistency of effort, consistency of attitude, consistency of effort and consistency of process of playing.
“And I think a disappointment for me would be if that doesn’t look right — the way we run on and off the field, attention to detail and certainly alignments, assignments — those types of things are things we’ve really worked hard on and controlling what we can control, and those are the things I’m really looking for Saturday night.”
JASON CANDLE, TOLEDO “I think certainly you want to see a spirited football team. You want to see a team that plays with a little bit of an edge and a chip on their shoulder. That’s kind of always been our approach here, and any of the good teams I’ve been a part of in my career, any of those teams had that quality.
“Something that would kind of disappoint and make your stomach turn a little bit would be a sloppy game and an undisciplined football team that didn’t play to the best of their ability or reach their full potential, because certainly that’s what we preach around here, and that’s what the expectations are.”
D.J. DURKIN, MARYLAND “There’s quite a long list, but to narrow it down, really what I want to see from our guys is a team that plays with the characteristics we talk about are important here, which is being very competitive, playing hard, being physical, tough, and doing things the right way.
“In terms of concerning things, No. 1 of the things we talk about in this building every day is ball security and taking care of the football, so I hope we do a good job of that coming out on Saturday and understanding how important that is in terms of wins and losses.”
SCOTT FROST, CENTRAL FLORIDA “I just want to see execution. That’s what I expect, and that’s what I want to see. If our guys just go out there and do their job, I think they’re going to surprise a lot of people.
“The thing I don’t want to see is too much emotion. I want our team to learn to be consistent, and the way to be consistent is to take every single challenge and treat it the same way. And it doesn’t matter if we’re playing a Division II school or a Super Bowl contender, we need to go out and play the same way and play hard and keep our heads. If this team can execute and be consistent, I think we’ll surprise a lot of people.”
JUSTIN FUENTE, VIRGINIA TECH “I think the first game of the year there’s always concern in terms of playing smart. You hear coaches talking about first-game mistakes. We have tried to go to the nth degree in terms of addressing those things leading up to the first game, whether it’s alignment technique, discipline on special teams, on offense or defense.
“For me, that’s what I want to see us do. I’ll be pretty pleased if I see us minimize those first-game things that can sometimes plague football teams. If we can minimize those things, we will have gotten our point across, guys have listened, I’ll be excited about that. If we don’t, obviously we didn’t do a good job of getting those points across.
“All that being said, there’s going to be some guys playing college football for the first time. Hopefully we’ve done a great job preparing those guys. There is no substitute for actually playing. There will be a few of those things out there that occur that are young-guy mistakes.”
MIKE JINKS, BOWLING GREEN “Just to be out there opening day in a storied arena (the Falcons open at Ohio State), just to be in front of that 107,000 and hear them get ramped up prior to kickoff, it’s something I’m really looking forward to. And if they’re still yelling 3 1⁄2, four hours later, that’s something I’m not looking forward to.”
BRONCO MENDENHALL, VIRGINIA “What I’d be pleased to see is resiliency. This team is a team that is learning about work capacity and learning about handling unique and tough situations and continuing to play hard. We’ve put our team through a lot with the idea of building a resilient team, meaning handling the different swings and momentum changes that happen in a game and just continuing to push on regardless of outcome. And so I’m an effort-based coach, and I like players that play hard regardless of circumstance no matter what. And so I’m hopeful to see that that’s carried or that that’s something that’s demonstrable and something that shows from how I watch them play.
“And something that would concern me I think would be the absence of that and if the roots haven’t gotten deep yet in terms of their ability to handle the ups and downs of a given game. We work — I’ve mentioned so many times to them, the games don’t go according to script or it’s rare that they do, and their ability to transition and move quickly from one scenario to the next and forget the last play and move on to the next one is something we’ve worked hard on. So I’m hopeful to see us adjust well to whatever situations come with an optimistic and positive mind-set and then a resilient spirit. I think I’ll be able to tell just by how hard they try through the game.”
KIRBY SMART, GEORGIA “Penalties and special teams would concern me, because I think that’s always your fear in the first game is, I don’t mean undisciplined penalties, but just poor decisions and dumb timing efficiency penalties. You know, getting in and out of the huddle, jumping offside, that kind of thing. And then the special teams is something every coach is concerned about in these games, because you haven’t been able to simulate the live situations. There’s such great contact on those. So those are the two things that would concern me.
“But as far as what’s going to fire me up, the flip side of that is great special-teams play, great effort, but also then defensive players running to the ball, getting lined up quick, and offensive players blocking on the perimeter and covering down and keeping people off our skill players. Effort-type stuff is what I’m looking for. I mean, I know we’re going to have some screw-ups, but I’m looking for the effort and toughness that we want to create here.”