Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Coaching chaos fused Huskies’ spirit
Northern Illinois football players have a pretty good idea what the Arkansas State Red Wolves are going through in preparation for Sunday’s Godaddy.com Bowl in Moblle, Ala.
The Huskies know what it’s like to win 10 games, earn a bowl berth, then have the party suddenly stop. It happened to them more than a year ago, just as it happened to ASU about five weeks ago.
“We definitely feel for them,” Nothern Illinois quarterback Chandler Harnish said Tuesday. “The players on that team win games, not coaches. They’re just there to kind of guide you, but it’s on you between those white lines. But that makes them kind of dangerous.”
It was Dec. 5, 2010, when Jerry Kill, the man who guided the Huskies
kies to a 10-3 regular season and a berth in the Huminatrian Bowl, sat stoically before his team, waiting until the team’s banquet ended to formally say he’d be leaving to coach the downtrodden Minnesota Golden Gophers.
It was Dec. 5, 2011, when Hugh Freeze, the man who guided the Red Wolves to a 10-2 regular season, an 80 Sun Belt season and a bowl berth, announced he was heading to Ole Miss after just one season as head coach in Jonesboro.
Freeze’s decision to leave ASU left Red Wolves players and fans temporarily despondent, but it might have been even worse for Northern Illinois. Fifteen days stood between Kill’s departure and Northern Illinois’ bowl game against Fresno State in Boise, Idaho. Over that span, linebackers coach Tim Matukewicz was interim coach. On Dec. 14, Athletic Director Jeff Compher hired Wisconsin assistant Dan Doeren as Kill’s replacement.
Arkansas State (10-2), which faces the Mid-american Conference champion Huskies (10-3) at 8 p.m. Central on Sunday, can take solace in the fact that the upheaval of a coaching change doesn’t necessarily spell doom.
Interim coach David Gunn has led a staff of five in preparing the Red Wolves, even after ASU announced the popular hiring of Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, a former Arkansas high school coach who served one tumultuous but winning season at Arkansas.
Malzahn will be on the sideline Sunday, but Gunn, who already has earned a spot on Malzahn’s staff, will do the coaching, just as Matukewicz, who had already earned a position on Doeren’s staff, did for the Huskies.
And Northern Illinois beat Fresno State 41-17, a feat ASU fans hope Gunn can match.
“We know one thing after last season,” Doeren said. “Coaching staff or not, that team is going to spill its guts for one another.”
NO GOOD BYE
Kill announced his departure two days after Northern Illinois lost the MAC title game, 26-21, in wrenching fashion to Miami (Ohio) on a Hail Mary touchdown pass with 33 seconds left. Fifth-year senior linebacker Alex Kube crumpled and sobbed on the Ford Field turf. The words of teammates Pat Schiller and Demarcus Grady provided no comfort.
Then, they got news their coach was getting a new team and a new $1.7 million salary.
“It was like, ‘Whoa, how can this happen?’ ” Compher said. “When you have a team and a fan base that care so much about each other, then there’s this feeling of how can this transpire?”
Compher, like ASU Athletic Director Dean Lee, wasn’t caught off guard.
Compher said he knew Kill had been having conversations with Minnesota officials, and the two talked throughout the process, just as Lee was aware of Freeze’s past ties to Ole Miss, and the fact that the Rebels fired former coach Houston Nutt with three games to go in the season.
ASU even sent out a news release during the week of its final regular-season game that neither Lee nor Freeze would answer questions about Freeze’s job status, and that Freeze would not be granted permission to talk with other teams until after the season finale against Troy.
Kill grudgingly accepted the fact that his players didn’t learn of the change from his own lips just as ASU’S players had heard that Freeze was likely gone before their final team meeting.
“There’s nothing I could control about that,” Kill told The Chronicle in Dekalb, Ill., last year. “Is there a right way to do things? A wrong way? You can talk about that. But there is no good way to talk about that.” The players understood. “It is a business, and it’s becoming more of one every year with a lot of money involved,” Harnish said. “All you have to do as a player is to put yourself in a coach’s shoes. If they make a certain amount of money and can triple that, how do you turn that down?”
RESILIENT SPIRIT
Ultimately, the Huskies realized the burden of preparing for their bowl game was mainly in their grasp.
In a team meeting, fifth-year seniors shared their stories. They had been recruited by former Coach Joe Novak, who retired after the 2007 season, and then led by Kill for the past three seasons. Now, they would have their third coach during their college careers.
More than anything, the underlying message was that accountability and actions were controlled not by a middleaged man in a polo and donning a head set. It rested in the Huskies’ hands.
Not that the Huskies were in the same predicament as Arkansas State, which lost its defensive coordinator, linebackers coach, defensive line coach and tight ends coach when Freeze left for Ole Miss.
Behind Matukewicz, offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover would still call plays and defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys would still scheme up blitzes and formulate a plan to slow Fresno State.
Matukewicz’s chief task, then, was to simply reiterate the Huskies ultimately had control.
“Coaches will always try to put you in the best possible position to win,” Schiller said. “But it’s the players that have to execute. Whenever a coach says his players are the key, it shows he has a sense of trust in us.”
A lapse didn’t take place for the Huskies. They dominated every facet of their bowl game in a 23-point victory.
Northern Illinois’ offense outgained Fresno State 503352, while their defense made six sacks.
Harnish ran for two touchdowns to erase an early 7-0 deficit, and a 45-yard field goal in the second quarter made it 16-7 as Northern Illinois scored 23 consecutive points en route to a 23-10 lead at halftime.
Walking into the locker room, Matukewicz told a sideline reporter that he’d use his timeouts — regardless of the score — to enjoy the final minutes the game. The time was spent toweling off from a Gatorade bath.
“It’s cold,” he told The Chronicle. “And it felt awesome.”