Schutt Sports FBS I-A Coach of the Year Finalists

by: Curt Block
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Gary Pinkel • Missouri

One tested formula for success is setting priorities and then achieving them. After last season Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel met with his returning seniors and laid out a plan of attack for their ’07 opponents.

First, play on a consistent basis. Second, win all non-conference games. Third, be a good team in November.

Now, looking back, Coach Pinkel is satisfied they realized their goals. The consistency is evident in their 12 wins, the most since the coach arrived at Mizzou in 2001, a 12-2 overall mark and a Cotton Bowl win. Next, the Tigers swept their out-of-conference schedule, handling Illinois, Ole Miss, Western Michigan and Illinois State. And November was better than good, going 4 for 4.

Pinkel reviewed 2007 in a conversation with AFM. “We were very fortunate to get into the conference season 4-0. After a loss to Oklahoma halfway through the season we had a chance to win a divisional championship. We went on a run to win every game in November.

“We started the season with a talented but inexperienced defense. We were much better in November than we were in September. So the combination of both of those things gave us a chance to win at a higher level.

“Our punt and kickoff return teams were pretty good. The punting team had a couple of kicks blocked; that is inexcusable and we had some issues there. But we had a kickoff returned for a TD for the first time in a long while and also a couple of punt returns for TDs. You’re never good enough in special teams but I thought overall it was an advantage for us.

“For most people leaderhip is something that is learned. I think it’s difficult to become a super high level team if you don’t have someone like our quarterback Chase Daniel. He has something that makes him extraordinary as a leader.”

Pinkel has yet to set a date to meet with his senior leaders to outline priorities for 2008.

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Les Miles • LSU

2007 was a remarkable year for LSU: • The Tigers gave up a school record four first round selections in the NFL draft. • Their only two losses came in a pair of heartbreaking triple overtime games.• They became the first two-loss school ever in the national championship game.

And then there was the year-end staying-going-staying give and take for HC Les Miles.

Seldom does a team regard their losses as a key to the season but rarely does a school find itself on the wrong side of two triple OTs. To review: LSU was the nation’s top-ranked team riding a six game win string when they fell 43-37 after three extra sessions at Kentucky. They were crushed again Thanksgiving weekend as a national audience watched Arkansas claw its way past the Tigers, 50-48, in another triple overtime contest.

It was amid the three OTs and a series of key injuries that Coach Miles’ squad developed a “find another way to win attitude.” Miles was confronted with his first big turning point of the season after the loss to Kentucky. “Coming off that game we had played 94 plays on defense and 94 plays on offense,” Miles said. “Our team was not only spent emotionally but physically. Then we had to turn around and play Auburn the next week. Auburn would certainly qualify as one of the most physical teams in the conference. We were at an emotional low as we went into the game.

“But our football team has great character. Our guys understand that that is football. Occasionally the ball doesn’t bounce just right, you don’t play your best and somehow, someway you finish second and you have to play well the next week. All the (SEC) West was in front of us. If we didn’t rebound there we wouldn’t have any opportunity at the West, the conference and certainly not at the BCS Championship Game. But our team is resilient. There are a lot of quality men on that team and we played well in the back end of the season.”

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Dennis Erickson • Arizona

Dennis Erickson possesses an honors-saturated resume. Twice he steered the Miami Hurricanes to national championships (1989, 1991). This year he collected his third Pac-10 Coach of the Year Award, fittingly for the much traveled HC at three different schools. He spent 1988 at Washington State, 2000 with Oregon State and this season for the eye-catching turnaround in his first year at Arizona State.

Recruiting Dennis Erickson to Tempe was a no-brainer for ASU Vice President of Athletics Lisa Love. “When you look at his accomplishments what stands out is his big game experience. He has been to the top of the college football world with two national titles at a proven football power that had not had a winning season in three decades. He’s coached in some of the nation’s best rivalry games at the highest level and handled the pressure of being ranked number one. All that defined him as someone we wanted to define us.” And it did work.

“Offensively, we simplified the terminology which made things easier for (QB) Rudy Carpenter,” Erickson says explaining his approach to the new assignment. The junior signal caller responded by throwing for 3,015 yards that included 23 TDs. “We took the pressure off and just asked him to run the offense.

“Defensively you’ve got to look at what are your pluses and what are your minuses and take advantage of that. We have linebackers that run pretty well and our ends are playing very well. Our tackles do what we ask them to do and are playing smart. We stay in our gaps. We play great team defense. We’re running to the football and have confidence in what we’re doing. If we make a mistake, we know where it is and don’t have to guess. It’s the same in the secondary. They understand where they need to be. They make plays and we’re not making a lot of mental mistakes.”

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June Jones • Hawaii

The 12-0 Warriors and the NFL-dominant New England Patriots had more in common than just demolishing opponents.

The nation’s only Football Bowl Subdivision undefeated team owns the longest current win streak at 13 (22 out of 23 the last two seasons the coach is quick to point out), ignite scoreboard with rarely seen numbers and fire passes around the field like the NFL’s finest.

“We’re basically just like New England,” Jones claims, although even the Patriots did not average 46 points per game like the nation’s leading Warriors. “We might throw 30 straight passes. When I started that offense in the NFL in 1987 it was a non-conformist way to play the game. I find it very interesting the Patriots are now using a spread formation with three or four wide outs and its very highly thought of now. But when we took Detroit to the NFL Championship in three years, it was not the thing to do.

“At Hawaii we have a great group of kids that bought into putting the team before themselves,” Jones told AFM. “Colt (QB Colt Brennan) exemplifies that in everything he does and says. I think those intangible things of love for each other, sacrifice and all the things that happen in the locker room and off the field are the difference in making an ordinary team a great team. Every team has the Xs and Os. But the thing we’ve done everywhere I’ve ever been is to make the players want to do it for each other rather than for themselves.

“Our defensive philosophy has been one of takeaways and sacking the quarterback because that combination with the type of offense we play gives us tremendous advantages with more touches with the ball to put the game out of reach. We probably have one of the strongest teams around. We have a bunch of guys who bench over 400 pounds. We’re a very powerful team, strength-wise. We’re a zone blitz, aggressive team, similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

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