Schutt Sports College Coaches of the Year

by: David Purdum
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FCS - DIVISION I-AA

Mark Farley Northern Iowa (7th year)

Record: 12-1, first Gateway Conference school to complete a perfect 11-0 season; upset Iowa State.
Offense: Primarily a one-back, Shotgun West Coast offense, with 30-40% mix of I-formation.
Defense: 4-3
Key Stat: Talk about balance – the Panthers averaged 227 rushing yards and 229 passing yards this season.

The difference in Mark Farley’s football this season compared to last is simple: “We were good every week,” said Farley. “It wasn’t the great games and then the OK games. We were very consistent. I credit that to the off season.”

In 2006, Northern Iowa ended the season ranked 17th in the nation and was left out of the 16-team I-AA playoffs. The next day, Farley called a team meeting and examined what had happened.

“We made a commitment back on that day as a football team,” said Farley. “For the next 12 months, we were not going to take anybody for granted. We were going to stay determined, focused and consistent. We weren’t going to have the highs and the lows of the previous year.”

That mentality paid off early this season. The Panthers didn’t play at home in September, but managed to stay focused, even after experiencing an emotional high with a huge upset of Iowa State in Ames.

Along with focus, Farley also points to his staff’s preparation for this season’s success, specifically film work.

“When we get into film study, we’re always looking for the personnel match-up, but we’re also looking closely at the point of attack,” explained Farley. “We try to break down the opponent’s playbook. We try to see what they’re going to do so we can create an advantage at the point of attack. We spend a lot of our time in film study on the point of attack.”

FCS - DIVISION II

David Dean
Valdosta State (1st year)

Record: 12-1, Division II National Champions
Offense: One-back, no-huddle spread out of the Shotgun.
Defense: 4-3, with Cover 2 and quarters coverage, using safeties for run support. Key Stat: Forced 40 turnovers, including 27 interceptions, most in the nation.

Entering his first season as head coach at Valdosta State, David Dean had possibly the biggest concern any coach can have.

“We didn’t know how we were going to stop the run,” said Dean, who spent the last seven seasons as Valdosta’s offensive coordinator.

Right before camp started, three starters on the defensive line were lost for the year. Suddenly, what had been a team strength had turned into a glaring weakness. The linemen that were left were much smaller than the original unit. But they were also much faster. Dean utilized that speed to create confusion on the opposing offensive line with multiple blitzes, twists and stunts.

“We didn’t want to stay in the same spot, forcing offensive linemen to guess where we were going and force them to move to us and try to stay with our speed,” he said. At the same time he complimented DC Joe Cauthen and defensive line coach Earl Chambers.

The movement worked. Valdosta limited Northwest Missouri State, a team averaging 219 yards on the ground, to 87 rushing yards in the national championship game.

Offensively, Dean noticed defenses increasingly pressing his wide receivers at the line of scrimmage. Dean countered by stacking his receivers more often than in years past.

“This was really beneficial for us because it allowed our wide outs to keep free releases off the ball,” he said. “People were trying to disrupt the timing of our pass routes by jamming us at the line of scrimmage, but they weren’t able to do that because we were stacking guys up.”

DIVISION III

Lance Leipold
Wisconsin-Whitewater (1st year)

Record: 14-1, Division III National Champions.
Offense: One-or two-back zone scheme, with elements of Wisconsin power running game of the 1990’s and Nevada’s Pistol offense.
Defense: Multiple 4-3.
Key Stat: Forced 53 turnovers, including 34 interceptions.

After consecutive 14-1 seasons, Wisconsin-Whitewater wasn’t used to bouncing back after a loss.

Both of the Warhawks’ defeats had come to the Mount Union juggernaut in the 2005 and 2006 Stagg Bowl. As painful as those losses were, they had eight months to get over them.

That wasn’t the case this season, Lance Leipold’s first year as head coach. Whitewater lost to Division II Saint Cloud State in the second week of the season. How would they bounce back, Leipold wondered?

The Warkhawks answered by winning 13 games in 13 weeks, topped off by a 31-21 win over Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl. How did Leipold keep his team fresh during such a grueling stretch? By practicing harder.

Leipold’s practices aren’t for the faint of heart and the intensity and aggressive pace he demanded raised a few eyebrows. “Early on, players would kind of look at me as if to say ‘how are we going to make it until Saturday if we keep practicing like this,’ remembered Leipold.

“We really believe practicing at that pace makes it easier on Saturday because players are going to see a lot of game-speed situations as possible during practice.”

Still, teams wear down during long seasons. In an effort to keep his team fresh for the playoffs, the Warhawks didn’t practice in pads on Thursday for approximately the last 10 weeks. “We made them carry the pads over to the field just in case we weren’t seeing what we needed to see,” said Leipold, “but we never had to make them put them on.”

NAIA

Dale Carlson
Ohio Dominican (4th year)

Record: 12-1, won school’s first Mid-States Football Association Mideast League title.
Offense: Multiple pro-style similar to the Colts, lots of two-tight formations with a mix of Shotgun.
Defense: 3-4, zone blitz scheme patterned after the Steelers.
Key Stat: Field position domination – led the conference in punting and punt returns.

It was one of Ohio Dominican’s biggest games and would propel the Panthers to the best season in the school’s four-year history.

Coach Dale Carlson and his staff had an advantage. By focusing on their opponent’s pass protection schemes during film preparation, they had discovered a flaw.

“They were putting the back to the same side they were sliding to,” said Carlson. “It opened up an opportunity for us to overload the other side and led to a couple of very important sacks that kind of catapulted us to what was a huge win for us.”

Carlson also points to two special teams adjustments as reasons for the Panthers’ success. In punt protection, Carlson emphasized a technique he saw being used at Ohio State during the spring.

“We focused on our kick slide and finishing to the outside,” said Carlson. “We used to try and attack people at the line of scrimmage, but now we were getting some depth off the line of scrimmage. I think that really helped. We ended up leading the conference in punting and a lot of that was due to what we did with our punt protections scheme.”

The second specials teams adjustment was on punt return. Carlson loves to block punts, but this year he put a little more emphasis on the return game. “We had a great punt returner and by focusing on our return game a little more, it allowed him to put us in a lot of short-field situations,” said Carlson. “I think those two things were really critical to our success this year.”

JUCO

Steven Campbell
Mississippi Gulf Coast CC (3rd year)

Record: 12-0, NJCAA Co-National Champions.
Offense: Spread option, similar to West Virginia.
Defense: 3-3-5 stack.
Key Stat: Defeated six ranked teams; outscored its opponents 440-167.

Steve Campbell brought more than 14 years of college football coaching experience to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College when he was named head coach in 2004. Additionally, as a player, he was a major part of the Troy State team that won the Division II National Championship in 1987. Although MGCC has been usually blessed with big-time talent, 2007 was an exception.

Prolific rusher Dantrell Savage was at Oklahoma State, and explosive wide out C.J. Hawthorne was developing into one of Colt Brennan’s favorite targets at Hawaii. That didn’t stop the Bulldogs from averaging nearly 37 points a game. But instead of force-feeding the ball to one or two players, Campbell tried to get everyone involved on offense. Every receiver got his chance on screens and multiple running backs were given opportunities.

“We had to spread the ball around because we didn’t have that one guy this year,” said Campbell, who also led Delta State to a national title. “By forcing defenses to defend not only the whole field, but also multiple players on the field, it really opened some things up for us this year.”

The kicking game also played a huge role in the Bulldogs’ undefeated season, according to Campbell. “We had a first-team All-American kicker (Sean Brauchle), so the rule that moved the kickoff back was the best thing that could ever happen to us,” said Campbell. “Sean put most of the kickoffs in the end zone or out of the end zone. If they tried to bring it out, they were starting inside the 20. It was a huge advantage for us all season.”

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