August 11, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
It's a Good Thing Winning Records Aren't All that Matters
By Bob Christ, Journal Staff WriterIf you're a veteran college football head coach with a glistening record, keeping your job shouldn't be difficult. USC's Pete Carroll and Texas' Mack Brown surely don't have their résumés posted on Monster.com, nor do they slink under the desk when the AD knocks.
But what about coaches with long tenures whose records aren't so shiny? What keeps the hot coals from searing their feet?
In the history of major college football, there have been 25 head coaches whose records after 10 years at a school were .500 or below. Eighteen of them were even welcomed back for an 11th year.
Of the 25, some were only a few games under break-even. A few were more than 25 games under. Arrgghh!
Or, in the case of UNM's Rocky Long, right at .500 (61-61, 1998-current).
Of those 25 field bosses, 16 boosted their stock by having an unbeaten season or spending time as a nationally ranked program. Six coaches in that cluster had at least one league title to hang their whistle on. Nineteen directed their school to a win over a Top 20 foe — two beat a No. 1.
Two of the 25 coaches, however, didn't fit in any of those categories. More on that later.
Looking Back
Not all coaches were measured by only total wins and losses.
Hayden Fry, an icon at Iowa, is in the College Football Hall of Fame — but probably not thanks to his head coaching debut at SMU ( 1962-1972). His Mustangs were 42-62-1 his first 10 seasons. What helped cut him slack was that his team, led by receiver Jerry LeVias, won the Southwest Conference title in 1966.
Oregon State's Dee Andros also had a losing record (1965-1975) through his first decade, but on one magical day in 1967 his squad beat top-ranked USC, which helped give "The Great Pumpkin" lasting street cred among Beaver backers.
Or in Ken Hatfield's case at Rice (55-79-1, 1994-2005), his reputation soared when his Owls beat 12th-ranked Texas in his first season, a colossal feat considering they had lost 28 straight to the Longhorns by an average of 23 points. Two years later, Rice pulled an astounding upset of No. 20 Utah, 51-10. It was the most lopsided win for an unranked team over a ranked foe all season.
Mr. Resilient
Based solely on won-loss records, the coach with the crummiest record in his first 10 years on a job was Indiana's Lee Corso, a longtime analyst on ESPN's GameDay. He was 41-68-2 (.378) from 1973-1982.
What was his secret to longevity at the Big Ten school? Did he have compromising pictures of the school president in a wading pool as a child?
Ring, ring.
"Really?! The worst record in the history of college football!?" he laughed regarding his obscure place in gridiron lore. "You can survive at a job (without a winning mark), but you cannot prostitute yourself to get a job or keep one. I was proud that I was a head football coach for (15) years (including Louisville and Northern Illinois) and never had an NCAA investigator even talk to one of my players."
A key to his extended stay was that IU went 8-4 in his seventh season, ending a 10-year streak of non-winning marks. The Hoosiers capped the season by knocking off undefeated BYU, 38-37, in the Holiday Bowl.
"After that win, other schools were interested in me. That's when I got a six-year extension," Corso said.
It lasted three, then he was fired.
Next on list
Rich Brooks is the current coach at Kentucky who also had a stint in the NFL as head coach in St. Louis. But things might have played out differently if an impatient administration at Oregon had derailed him in his first head coaching job.
These days, if you go to a Ducks home game you'll be watching a contest played on Rich Brooks Field. Fat chance he'd have been so honored based on his 40-66-4 (.381) ledger over his first decade of an 18-year stay (1977-1994). Only Corso's winning percentage was lower.
And — this is just a guess — but being a graduate of archrival Oregon State didn't score him bonus points with fans, either.
"It didn't go over well the first year or two, until we started beating them every year," Brooks said in a recent phone interview.
Bill Byrne, the current AD at Texas A&M, was boss at Oregon from 1984-1992. He said he recognized the progress Brooks was making under difficult circumstances at the Pac-10 school.
"Rich was a brilliant football coach, but we had the worst facilities in the country," Byrne said. "The carpet was threadbare, held together with duct tape. There were five assistants in one office, four in the other. When you'd go in, the windows would be taped up. One coach would be watching film under his desk.
"Rich's office was a little bigger than a phone booth (Brooks said it was like a janitor's closet). We didn't even have a practice field."
It's a wonder Brooks didn't run screaming into the night.
"The process at Oregon was a lot more difficult than it was at Kentucky, not just recruiting issues, but talent issues, facility issues, fan-support issues — a whole lot of different things," Brooks said. "I knew the ice was thin."
But he said he never questioned his ability.
"I didn't have any doubts, but some people did — the fans and the media, who were trying to make a change. The administration had the courage to stay the course and not give in to the negativity."
As facilities improved, so did the team. In his final season, Oregon won its first outright league title in history. He was named national coach of the year.
UNM?
As Long embarks on his 11th season, on the heels of a 9-4 record and the school's first bowl triumph since the one-and-done Aviation Bowl in 1961, what's in store for him and the Lobos?
Early in Long's career it might have been hard to forecast success, considering his first three teams went 3-9, 4-7 and 5-7 (12-23). After all, Oklahoma's John Blake had similar records his first three years in Norman from 1996-98 (3-8, 4-8, 5-6 — 12-22), and the school's regents couldn't drop-kick him out the door fast enough. Nevada's Chris Tormey had a progression of 2-10, 3-8, 5-7 and 6-6 marks (1999-2002) in his first four years. He didn't get a fifth.
Did Long's confidence ever wane?
Don't know. In late July, Long told the Journal he didn't want to participate in an interview for this story.
Did his bosses waver in their support of him?
Former UNM athletics director Rudy Davalos (1992-2006), who hired Long, said he never doubted Long was the right guy to take over a program that hadn't won a conference title since the mid-1960s.
"When I (first) met Rocky, I knew Rocky was a Lobo. He wasn't a polished guy, a slick talker, but was very passionate about UNM and wanted to be successful," Davalos said. "I think there are a lot of people who (are an alum) but don't have the passion for that school or the job."
Despite the passion, Long still hadn't created an early winning formula.
"After two or three years, I had heard through the grapevine he wasn't content with how it was going," Davalos said. "I never heard that he was going to resign or anything, it's just that he wasn't happy with the direction (the program) was going. I felt that even though the won-loss record wasn't that good, the program was heading in the right direction."
In fact, Long tied an NCAA record for progress. From his first year through his sixth, his teams had more victories than in the previous season, topping it off with an 8-5 mark in 2003 and a second straight Las Vegas Bowl berth.
And attendance was climbing. As were grade-point averages. The team reached a high this spring.
"When I came to New Mexico in the fall of 1992, I went to the last game of the season in November. We were playing Colorado State," Davalos said. "There must have been 12(000) or 13,000 there and the stadium held 30(000). Historically, New Mexico was not competitive in football."
Now the team is getting 30,000-plus a game.
Although Long's teams have never been nationally ranked, never won a league title or knocked off a Top 20 team (the Lobos did beat No. 24 Utah in 2003 but are 1-7 against ranked schools overall), there have been signature victories to mark on the team's growth chart.
"I thought one of his biggest wins was beating Texas Tech here," in 2004, by 27-24 on a last-second field goal, Davalos said.
"They had not lost to New Mexico in a long, long time. And Missouri (45-35, 2005), that was a big game. Those are the two biggest wins that we've had."
In the same boat
One guy Long would be fortunate to emulate is Penn State's Bob Higgins (1930-1948), who was 34-41-6 in his first decade in Happy Valley — or whatever it was called back then.
Like Long, Higgins was an alum of the team he coached. And, like Long, his teams were never ranked in that first 10-year stretch, nor did they beat a Top 20 program. He didn't win a league crown, either, although Higgins' excuse would have been that his school wasn't in a league.
However, it was Higgins who had the most remarkable career turnaround — record-wise — of any of the aforementioned "non-winning" coaches. The Penn State clubs of this future Hall of Famer went 57-16-1 the next nine years, including 9-0-1 in 1947.
Higgins, along with Washington State's Mike Price, a WSU alum, are the only two coaches to finish with a winning mark at a school despite having a non-winning mark through 10 years.
If Long does it, too, that'll make three. And all will have been school alums.
And if that indeed does happen, maybe Lobo fans in the future will be attending games at Rocky Long Field.