IT’S A PROCESS
San Jose State coach Brent Brennan is turning doubters into believers
From the time his team put the finishing touches on an impressive win over San Diego State to when he boarded the plane to come home less than 90 minutes later, San Jose State coach Brent Brennan said he received 592 text messages of congratulations.
As of early Monday afternoon, an appreciative Brennan had only whittled down the number of unread messages to 363 — as he heard from other coaches like Jeff Tedford and Mike MacIntyre, and alumni like former NFL receiver James Jones.
“It’s funny,” Brennan said. “Everyone loves you when you win, they hate you when you lose. That’s the world we live in, but I do think that it’s pretty cool to hear from people, and know that a lot of people are excited about our process.”
There’s no doubt about that, especially after the Spartans beat San Diego State 28-17 on Friday to improve to improve to 3- 0 for the first time in 38 years.
The excitement will only build, too, should San Jose State beat UNLV on Saturday and go to 4-0 for the first time since 1955.
San Jose State also received votes in the USA Today coaches poll, the first time since the end of the 2012 season it has received votes in a top 25 national poll.
It’s all well and good, and Brennan doesn’t want to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, especially since the Spartans haven’t finished above .500 since 2012. But even though his program seems to have come a long way in three-plus seasons, Brennan’s not ready to bask in the admiration.
“We’ve won three games, and we’ve got five left,” Brennan said. “I’m sure of y’all are sitting there saying
that sounds like coach talk or whatever, but this is the whole result-oriented business, and no cares when you did yesterday or last week. It doesn’t matter.
“None of it matters if we don’t play well going forward.”
Still, the Spartans are not going to be shy about celebrating victories that were so few and far between in recent years.
Inside the locker room at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson after Friday’s win, Brennan let loose, as he and his players celebrated their biggest conference win together.
“I was so excited for our players,” Brennan said. “Our administration has obviously stuck with us and been through a lot in the process of trying to build a program here at San Jose State that we can all be proud of.”
Offensive lineman Jack Snyder, a fifth-year senior, sensed the team’s confidence
rising even before this season’s sizzling start.
“The last few years, we haven’t always gotten the results we’ve wanted, but I feel like we’ve been taking a lot of steps in the right direction at least,” said Snyder, a former Marin Catholic High standout. “I feel like we were ready to take the next step this year and so far, we’ve been able to do that. It’s been really fun so far.”
Linebacker Kyle Harmon, who is averaging 14 tackles per game, said he noticed a turnaround happening this past offseason.
“During the spring, before the pandemic hit, you could really feel something different about this team,” said Harmon, a former Freedom High star. “That feeling and staying connected throughout certain times has definitely got us going in the right direction.”
Brennan came to San Jose State in 2017, a year after the Spartans went 4-8 over
all and 3-5 in the Mountain West. The Spartans went 2-10 that first season, 1-7 in conference play.
The next year. San Jose State went 1-11, matching a program record set in 2010 for fewest wins in a season, and finished 117th out of 130 FBS teams in points scored per game with 21.2.
But Brennan saw progress.
Three of the losses in 2018 were by a field goal, and two more were by nine points or less. Before the start of the 2019 season, Brennan put together a handful of video clips to show his players just how close they were.
The video showed scoreboards of three games San Jose State tied or led in the fourth quarter in 2018 — games the Spartans lost.
Even last season, Brennan said he felt his team let “three to five games get away from us, that could have been the difference in having a really amazing season.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s football or if it’s life, when hard stuff happens, you have a choice how you want to handle it. As a guy leading young men, I want them to learn how to overcome adversity and how to stare it down and attack it and find ways to keep moving forward.”
It’s paid off so far this year.
Although the offense has had its struggles, the Spartans might have its best defense in years. San Jose State is 14th in the country in points allowed per game and have so far outscored its three opponents — Air Force, New Mexico and the Aztecs — 55-20 in the second half.
San Jose State and Nevada are tied for first place in the Mountain West with 3- 0 records. Boise State is third at 2- 0 in the conference and 2-1 overall.
“Our first couple years here, we were playing a
ton of freshmen and sophomores. Young bodies,” Brennan said. “And those guys have grown up, and they’ve played a lot of football.”
When the Spartans returned to the San Jose State campus early Saturday morning, they were greeted by cheering members of the baseball team — a fun scene that might not have happened a year or two ago.
After all, everyone loves a winner.
“If you’re trying to do something that has been challenging over the years,” Brennan said, “if you run into the roadblocks, if you run into obstacles, your only choice is to keep moving forward. To keep a good thought about you, to try and encourage people to believe, and hopefully some things that demonstrate that you can or prove that you can.”