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AFM’s FBS Coach of the Year: Boise State’s Chris Petersenby: David Purdum© More from this issue Chemistry is so much more than just a cliché at Boise State. In fact, according to head coach Chris Petersen, chemistry is “as important as anything we do here.” You went undefeated this past season yet were excluded from the BCS title game. Was it disappointing? We take the philosophy here not to get caught up in the BCS. We have a smile on our faces with regards to the BCS process and always want to be prepared to compete. I feel the process is slowly changing and we’re getting more and more opportunities. We feel like progress is being made all the time. Seven to ten years ago there was very little discussion about non-automatic qualifying teams making it to BCS games, and now teams like ourselves, Utah, TCU and Hawai’i are getting there on a regular basis and winning some of those games. The conversations and perceptions are changing and it’s going to get better. For the 2010 season you have 21 of 22 offensive and defensive starters returning. If you go undefeated, do you feel you’ll have the opportunity to play in the BCS Championship Game? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we’re mentioned in that regard, we’ll deal with it at that time. Next year we have the hardest schedule we’ve ever had. We don’t really discuss that topic, but just being mentioned in the conversation is a compliment for our program. In visiting with our team, our discussions have always been to take it one game at a time and, if you’re successful, things will work for the better. We feel real progress is being made for the non-BCS schools. One of the first things you did after becoming head coach was to rearrange the locker room. Your tight end Richie Brockel said that move did wonders for the team’s unity. Why was something as simple as moving lockers around so effective for your team? When it first came up, that we were going to move the locker room around, nobody liked it. Nobody wanted any part of it. And I just said let’s just try it for this year and if everybody is still not good with it we can always go back. But by the end of the year, it was a consensus that everybody was good with it. Your biggest area of statistical improvement came in the running game. You averaged 35 yards more per game this season compared to last. That’s nearly a 35 percent increase. What do you attribute that improvement to? We had a new line last year and most of those guys came back, so familiarity with the system certainly helps things. Secondly, we simplified things this year and threw out some runs that we didn’t use a whole lot. We just wanted to concentrate on getting better at a few things as opposed to watering down the whole program, while trying to work on everything at once. For us to be successful on offense, running the ball is very much a part of who we want to be. You received so much notoriety for your trick plays that it has to get more and more difficult to surprise opponents with them. Yet, you guys keep having success. Take us through the process your staff goes through pinpointing and developing possible plays. Honestly, very little of what we come up with around here is original thinking. Most of these things come from somebody else. It’s usually on video tape of some kind, whether it be an opponent we play or an opponent of an opponent or a high school tape. If somebody sees something that’s interesting or creative, we’re studying that. According to Brockel, you used the fake punt that you used against TCU in the Fiesta Bowl earlier in the season. We did but it was a little bit different than before. The formation was a little different. You are always tweaking things, so it does not look the same to them. It can look the same to the coaches, but it doesn’t look the same to the 11 guys that matter out on the field. With Urban Meyer’s health issues, stress has really come to the forefront in the coaching profession. Please share a little about your time management and things you do to control your stress level, and that of your staff and team. I am surprised at how long it took for this to come to the forefront. It’s just a stressful environment that we live in. I think it is really important that we pay attention to having as much balance in our lives as possible. One of the main problems is, when you get into that new season, there just is not any balance; it’s football 24/7. I think it’s very important somehow that you not make it football 24/7. You have to have some time to exercise and to see your family. I read that you always wear the same hat for games, unless you lose. So did you hold up that superstition this year and end up after the Fiesta Bowl with the same hat you wearing in the opener against Oregon? Absolutely. Will that hat start the 2010 season? Well, sometimes you have to start fresh, but … I guess that’s one of the stressful decisions I’ll have to make this summer. p |
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