Time at Vandy, Penn State indicates Rahne is ‘ready’
First-time head coach familiar with rebuilding
NORFOLK — Ricky Rahne believes he’s “absolutely ready” to be a head football coach, Old Dominion’s administration clearly agrees, and Rahne’s credentials suggest they’re spot-on.
“But it’s a little bit like being ready to be a parent, right?” Rahne said during his unveiling Wednesday at S.B. Ballard Stadium. “You say you’re ready, and then somebody hands you another live human being, and you’re like, ‘Holy mackerel, I’m responsible for this now.’ ” Pretty much.
Now coaching isn’t quite as harrowing as parenting, but there are moments, especially when the program you inherit is as troubled as ODU’s.
But Rahne is no stranger to clearing such hurdles, and that’s among the reasons Monarchs faithful should embrace Bobby Wilder’s successor.
Vanderbilt had endured two consecutive 2-10 years when James Franklin, with Rahne as his quarterbacks coach, arrived prior to the 2011 season. The Commodores promptly finished 6-7, 9-4 and 9-4, cracking the final Associated Press top 25 for the first time since 1948 and doing so in back-toback years for the first time in school history.
Rahne then accompanied Franklin to Penn State, a storied program with exponentially more resources and heritage than Vanderbilt, but one reeling from NCAA sanctions and the Jerry Sandusky scandal. The Nittany Lions have since authored six straight winning seasons and are poised for their fourth consecutive top-20 finish, the last two with Rahne as offensive coordinator.
ODU athletic director Wood
Selig said he, his senior staff and university president John Broderick were searching for a candidate who had experience rebuilding “at the highest level” and was a dynamic recruiter who could “re-establish” the Monarchs’ presence not only in Hampton Roads, but also the state at-large.
“In short,” Selig said, “we were looking for a miracle worker.”
That’s a mighty high bar for anyone, let alone a coach who’s never been the boss. But any leader of any organization had someone bet on their potential, and if you look at teams from outside the Power Five ranked by the College Football Playoff, you’ll find résumés similar to Rahne’s.
Mike Norvell was Arizona State’s offensive coordinator before steering Memphis to this season’s Cotton Bowl. He’s since moved to Florida State.
Luke Fickell was Ohio State’s co-defensive coordinator prior to landing Cincinnati’s head-coaching gig. Eliah Drinkwitz was North Carolina State’s co-OC before guiding Appalachian State to this year’s Sun Belt Conference title. He’s since taken over at Missouri.
“If Appalachian State can be a top-25 program, no disrespect to Appalachian State and Boone,
North Carolina, but if that can be accomplished at Appalachian State, there’s no reason to think we can’t be a similar type of program,” Selig said.
Yes, but the comparison goes only so far.
While ODU, according to U.S. Department of Education data, spends more on football than Appalachian State, the Mountaineers have far more tradition and national recognition. App State won three consecutive Championship Subdivision national titles from 2005-07, and in that latter season, the Mountaineers famously defeated Michigan in the Big House.
So App State was, to use Rahne’s phrase, “absolutely ready” when the school elevated to the Bowl Subdivision in 2014. It is 60-17 since.
Conversely, ODU was 1-11 this year, 0-8 in Conference USA, the Monarchs’ fourth losing season in the past five years. But as program architect Wilder showed with a 10-3 mark in 2016 and a wildly successful FCS run, there is potential on Hampton Boulevard.
The Monarchs rank 126th among 130 FBS teams in scoring at 16.3 points per game, and Rahne, a record-setting quarterback at Cornell, knows offense. He worked under accomplished big whistles such as Franklin and former Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, and as the offensive coordinator at a marquee program, he developed the thick skin needed to absorb the inevitable barbs from media and fans.
At 39 and Ivy League-educated, Rahne is, not surprisingly, attuned to metrics. For example, over a season’s course, he wants 15.4% of ODU’s snaps to be “explosive plays,” which he defines as runs of at least 12 yards and passes of at least 15 yards. He wants the defense to limit opponents to no more than 10.4%.
Under Rahne, Penn State ran the ball on approximately 57% of its snaps and played at an average tempo. But he said the run-pass ratio was skewed by lopsided games and the nasty weather that often accompanies late-season football in the Big Ten.
“For me,” Rahne said, “it’s all about, do I feel happy with how we did? And I do. I look back on my time at Penn State and I feel pretty darn good. There’s some incredible things that happened there. … The number I’m most proud of is the amount of wins we’ve had since we’ve been there.”
Lest you think Rahne is all gruff football coach, know that he teared up Wednesday talking about his wife, Jennifer, and their two sons. Moreover, he spoke of the humility he learned from Snyder.
“There’s something to sending a handwritten note to somebody telling them thank you,” Rahne said. “My handwriting is awful, so they have no idea what it says, but I assure you that it says ‘thank you’ in there somewhere.”