What Happened to My Football Program?
OXFORD, Ohio -- As is the custom around here, new buildings are smothered with red brick and molded into a Georgian style. Just like that, they stand as gracefully ancient as Miami University, celebrating its 200th year.
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I mention this, because such is the case for the decades-old-looking psychology school at the corner of Patterson and High streets, where they used to play football during my days on campus in the 1970s. Speaking of changes, they've switched the nickname of the sports teams from Redskins to RedHawks. Even more striking, the dominant sport for Miami these days is hockey. In fact, despite choking away a two-goal lead at the end of last season's NCAA championship game, Miami is ranked No. 1 in the nation by USA Today entering this hockey season.That said, there is a bigger difference between Miami now and Miami during the time of the miracle I've been telling you about for three weeks -- you know, the miracle that was the collection of folks in my dormitory called Hepburn Hall. It eventually produced a slew of prominent college and pro coaches, players in the NFL, NBA and major league baseball and doctors, lawyers, CEOs and even journalists.The bigger difference is football.What happened to Miami football?This doesn't resemble that 13-1 team of six years ago during Ben Roethlisberger's senior year. This doesn't resemble the team that shocked No. 8 LSU in Death Valley in 1986. Or the one that gave Rose Bowl-bound Northwestern its only loss nine years later. Or the one that upset No. 12-ranked opponents (Virginia Tech and North Carolina) in consecutive seasons through 1998.This doesn't resemble those teams that had Miami earning its moniker as The Cradle of Coaches by spawning the likes of Paul Brown, Weeb Ewbank, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler.This also doesn't resemble those teams during my Hepburn Hall days that had a 32-1-1 record with victories in bowl games over Florida, and South Carolina to finish 15th, 10th and 12th during those three seasons in the AP poll..jpg)
On this Saturday afternoon, with a pretty sky over the new place on the edge of campus called Yager Stadium, Miami continued the oldest rivalry west of the Alleghenies before a stuffed house against the University of Cincinnati. While most college football polls had the Bearcats entering the game ranked 10th in the country, ESPN had Miami ranked third -- as in the nation's third-worst team with an 0-4 record this season, a nine-game losing streak overall and no hope against Cincinnati.So this wasn't surprising: courtesy of Tony Pike, Cincinnati's passing machine at quarterback, and a relentless pass rush (10 sacks), the Bearcats stormed to a 37-13 victory over Miami in the 114th Battle of the Victory Bell.Then again, such things happen when you're a new guy inheriting a program whose predecessor gave you a ridiculous talent deficit. Smallish players. Young ones, too, and the word "physical" wasn't in Miami's football vocabulary when Mike Haywood left his alma mater of Notre Dame as offensive coordinator to take over Miami this season.Haywood gets it, by the way. He knows that, not only does the Miami football program need players, but it needs a psychologist -- literally. The university has given Haywood permission to hire one to help examine the psyche of his players who have seen the program's glorious past become a ghastly present."I'd say 90 percent of their minds are not where they need to be, because when something bad happens, they anticipate something else bad happening, instead of going out and saying, 'I'm going to be the one to make the play,' " said Haywood, 45, a strong disciplinarian who demands that his players are into details -- on the field, in the classroom and during their lives.In contrast, Shane Montgomery, Haywood's Miami predecessor, was into mellow, which led to three losing seasons out of his four as head coach.Thus the need for a shrink. He'll be arriving to Miami soon from Michigan State as an accomplished team psychologist. Said Haywood, "When you believe you're going to be the one, and you believe in your teammate, there is slim and none of an opportunity of not having success. And right now, we're hoping. We got to start believing."Which means, what? "From where (the Roethlisberger years) were, I think we're two years away, because it's all about recruiting," said Haywood, sitting in his Yager Stadium office, with reminders of Miami's storied football history everywhere. Pictures showing the who's who of former head coaches line the hallway walls. In the large plaza (featuring red brick, of course) beyond the south end zone, they are constructing bronze statues of Earl "Red" Blaik, Paul Dietzel, Carmen Cozza, Ewbank, Brown, Parseghian and Schembechler. They all are among the 21 Miami graduates who have been recognized in some form as national collegiate or professional coaches of the year or have been inducted in the college football Hall of Fame.
This Cradle of Coaches thing isn't just a football coaching thing -- well, as you can tell by those from my Hepburn Hall days.Even beyond those days, Miami produced Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston of the Los Angeles Dodgers, along with Chicago Bears general manager Jerry Angelo and San Diego Chargers vice president Jim Steeg.What caused all of this?Ara Parseghian chuckled over the phone from his home in South Bend, Ind., where he helped make Notre Dame famous, and then he said, "You know, it's a question that people have tried to answer for decades about why Miami has produced all this talent, and no one has been able to come up with the perfect answer. But I think Miami may attract a certain type of person. It's a beautiful campus. It's a beautiful environment, and then you go back to the idea that success breeds success. That may be part of it."Then Parseghian thought about that stretch from 1949 through 1977, when he followed Woody Hayes as head coach and then was succeeded by John Pont, Schembechler, Bill Mallory and Dick Crum.As a group, they collectively coached for 148 seasons at Miami and other places and won 67 percent of the time."Back then, you had one or two guys going out who may have been successful, and they'd been in school with classmates, and then they decided to hire them as their assistants, and the tentacles sort of spread out that way," said Parseghian, before jumping to the present. He remembered the call he received last winter from Haywood when Haywood still was a Notre Dame assistant.Haywood wanted Parseghian to make a few calls to Miami on his behalf. "When I phoned Brad Bates, the athletics director, he said he already had Mike on his list," said Parseghian, who eventually saw history reverse itself. While Parseghian went from Miami to Notre Dame as head coach (with a pit stop at Northwestern), well, you know the rest, and get this: like Parseghian, Haywood feels a heavy dose of magic on the campuses of Notre Dame and Miami.It's different magic, though."When you walk around the campus of Notre Dame, you feel a certain spirit, and the spirit that you feel is a holy spirit, which makes the place special," said Haywood, a running back for the Fighting Irish in the mid-1980s. "At Notre Dame, you feel like everywhere you go that God is present."As for Miami, Haywood smiled, saying, "Once again, you still get that safe feeling that you have at Notre Dame. But it's also that people are extremely friendly. It's a warm and welcoming feeling that you get here. And as you walk around, sometimes you walk around in awe. That's because it's unbelievable that, when you drive through cornfields to get here, it's such an unbelievably gorgeous place -- from the cobblestone streets (downtown) to walking down the center of campus with all the trees."Sometimes, I say it's like Mayberry R.F.D."Good description. It's true now, and it was true during my days at Hepburn Hall, still on the north side of campus with its three stories and 270 or so residents. The closer I got to the old dormitory, the more it was the 1970s again, with Ron Zook, Randy Walker, Sherman Smith, Charlie Leibrandt and all the rest."Who?" said Philip Dodd after I walked through the front door of Hepburn Hall, where the native of Paris, Texas is a resident assistant.When I told Dodd that Zook and Walker were former national coaches of the year in college football, and that Smith is the offensive coordinator of the Washington Redskins, and that Leibrandt once was a prominent pitcher in the major leagues, Dodd apologized, saying, "To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a sports fan. Hey, let me introduce you to somebody in the dorm who really is."So Dodd took me to Dan Nickels, a junior from Knoxville, Tenn., who recognized at least some of Hepburn Hall's noted residents from my day. Nickels even responded with a few "wows" here and there.Who will be the stars of this Hepburn Hall?"Oh, boy. Well, we've got a couple of figure skaters who have done very well, and that's really cool," said Nickels, pausing. "As for what this dorm will produce in the future, I know about me. I know I'll be a highly successful attorney in court and procedural law, and I'll deal with malpractice defense. I also want to be a lobbyist."Not quite my Hepburn Hall, but it's a start.Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning," an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta.What Happened to My Football Program? originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:40:00 EST . .
Last Saturday, Northern Illinois went into West Lafayette, Ind., and beat Purdue convincingly. (Don't let the 28-21 final score fool you: NIU dominated that game from the second quarter on.) It was the Huskies' first victory over a Big Ten squad in 21 years and an important milestone for a program which was once among college football's very worst. Second-year head coach Jerry Kill has now taken his team to a bowl and knocked off one of the big boys. On the road, no less. You'd hardly know it, however. Big wins by underdogs usually lead to an avalanche of media coverage, but NIU's historic victory sank without a trace. Why? Because it's not news anymore when a MAC team beats a Big Ten squad. For decades, the "MACrifice" has been one of Big Ten football's most endearing rituals. Some Saturday in September, a school with a direction or a city in its name would come to one of the conference's football temples and walk out bloodied after a 66-0 beatdown. The win would give the coaches a chance to work all the way through the depth chart and served as a final tuneup before the conference season began. But why the MAC? Well, because they were there. The MAC's geographic footprint fits almost perfectly into the Big Ten's, and the MAC schools needed the money. Hence the uneasy big brother-little brother relationship between the two conferences. Funny thing about little brothers. They grow up. Sometimes they grow bigger than their big brothers. Even if they don't, though, they always know just the right buttons to press to get the big brother's hackles up. The MAC will never be a bigger football conference than the Big Ten, but the two conferences aren't as far apart as you might think. The largest MAC schools, like Kent State, Buffalo and Central Michigan, have larger enrollments than the Big Ten's smallest schools, Northwestern and Iowa. The states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are rich with prep football talent, and they can't all become Buckeyes, Nittany Lions, Bearcats or Panthers. Dreaming of the NFL? There are eight former Northern Illinois Huskies and eight former Kent State Golden Flashes on NFL rosters. Indiana and Northwestern each have only nine former players currently in the NFL. .fanhouseButton {margin:2em 0;} .fanhouseButton a:link, .fanhouseButton a:visited, .fanhouseButton a:hover, .fanhouseButton a:active {background-color:#dd2829;color:#FFFFFF;font-size:18px;padding:0.3em 0.6em;text-decoration:none;} .fanhouseButton a:hover {background-color:#000000;}
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Where the MAC schools can't compete is in terms of facilities and budgets. The Big Ten schools simply have more cash all the way around, even to fund academics. In terms of endowments, the MAC's wealthiest school (Buffalo) is more than a quarter billion dollars behind the Big Ten's least wealthy school (Iowa). This just makes it all the more surprising to find out, as I did, that every Big Ten school has lost to a MAC school at least once. Granted, if you play enough games against any conference, no matter how weak, they're going to rack up a couple upsets along the way. The MAC's all-time record against the Big Ten, as of the end of last season, stood at a dismal 47-300-8. (That's a .143 winning percentage.) The tide has turned, though, and in case you forgot, here are the MAC's five biggest victories over the Big Ten in the past decade: 1. 2008: Toledo 13, Michigan 10. This game is notable for several reasons. First, Michigan was the only remaining Big Ten school which had never lost a game to the MAC. (Giant technicality: Ohio State's only MAC loss was to Akron in 1894. That predates not only the MAC but also the Big Ten.) Second, it showed how far Michigan had slipped. Third, even though the Rockets won in the Big House, it still wasn't enough to save coach Tom Amstutz's job. Imagine that. You beat Michigan in Ann Arbor and still get run off. That proved it was no longer any big deal for a MAC school to beat a Big Ten school. 
2. 2007: Western Michigan 28, Iowa 19. The Hawkeyes came into this game 6-5, needing a win to lock up bowl eligibility for the seventh straight season. Western Michigan was having a flat-out bad year, coming into Iowa City with a 3-7 record. Hawkeye fans came to the game with the travel agency's phone number in their pockets, ready to book a trip to whatever bowl game their team would be going to after dispatching this MAC tomato can. In the twinkling of an eye, the Broncos were up 19-0 as they scored on four of their first five possessions. The Iowa offense, meanwhile, moved slower than a Steely Dan album track. At halftime, the Hawkeyes had only six first downs and six points. The Hawkeyes wound up staying home for the holidays. 3. 2003: Bowling Green 28, Northwestern 24. Only twice in its history has the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl (formerly the Motor City Bowl) produced its intended MAC-versus-Big Ten matchup. This was the first time, as a Bowling Green program in its first season without Urban Meyer prevailed over a Northwestern team making its second bowl appearance under Randy Walker. This was a true nail-biter with the lead and the momentum going back and forth until Bowling Green took it for good with just four minutes to play. 4. 2008: Western Michigan 23, Illinois 17. This game, played at Ford Field in Detroit, was a must-win for the Illini. Ron Zook's team was 5-4 coming into this one. A loss would mean having to beat either Ohio State or Northwestern just to become bowl eligible. Illinois certainly didn't play like they needed to win, though, with Juice Williams throwing two interceptions and the team going an almost-unbeliveable 1-13 on third down conversions. The Illini were down 20-7 at the half, lost the game, lost their next two games and wound up not going to a bowl just one season after going to the Rose Bowl. 5, 2009: Central Michigan 29, Michigan State 27. Sure, it's too early to tell if Michigan State is just really bad this season, but this was the MAC's first victory over a team expected to contend for the Big Ten title. The hype was huge surrounding the Spartans coming into this season. This game proved that Michigan State had some serious issues and Mark Dantonio had not yet removed all traces of Sparty-ness from his team's system. Coupled with a loss to Notre Dame the following week, it now looks like MSU will have to fight just to make it to a bowl game this season.
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COLUMBIA, SC - SEPTEMBER 24: Quarterback Stephen Garcia #5 of the South Carolina Gamecocks celebrates after throwing a touchdown pass in the third quarter of their game against the Mississippi Rebels at Williams-Brice Stadium on September 24, 2009 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Stephen Garcia
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COLUMBIA, SC - SEPTEMBER 24: Quarterback Stephen Garcia #5 of the South Carolina Gamecocks celebrates after throwing a touchdown pass in the third quarter of their game against the Mississippi Rebels at Williams-Brice Stadium on September 24, 2009 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Stephen Garcia.jpg)
ORLANDO - The longest bowl trip in college football history closed Saturday night when Buffalo took the field.The players ambled out to midfield. One of them needed a cane. The rest just needed hair dye to look like they did when the bowl bid arrived.It was 1958, and the Bulls promptly rejected it. They could have come to Orlando, but their African-American players would not have been allowed on the field.Fifty-one years later, they were given a standing ovation."It was a chance to right a wrong," Gerry Gergley said.He was one of 34 players who finally got their trip to Florida. By now you've probably heard the story of that team. It never gets old because you can learn something valuable every time the old Bulls get together."It wasn't anything we planned," said Willie Evans, one of the two African-Americans on that team. "For it to reverberate 50 years later, that's a long time."What reverberated with me was how society has progressed in the last half century, but how our sports culture has gone in reverse.Nobody at the UCF game was involved with the 1958 Tangerine Bowl. Yet everybody felt they owed Buffalo an apology.When they heard the present-day Bulls were playing at Bright House Stadium, local government and civic leaders arranged free airfare, hotel rooms and a reception for the ex-players. In a way, the old guys were lucky their trip took so long.In 1958, there was no Disney World to visit. The bowl activities probably consisted of a cookout and a trip to a cross burning..jpg)
Evans (pictured right) grew up in Buffalo and had heard about things like Whites-Only drinking fountains. He never knew his skin color would cost his team a holiday vacation."I didn't know the ugly finger stretched into athletics to the extent it did," he said.Orlando's school district operated the stadium where the Tangerine Bowl was played, and it banned integrated games. Nobody in Buffalo realized that when they got the bid. They were just pumped to have gone 8-1 and won the Lambert Cup.That went to the top small college program in the East. It may not sound like a big deal now, but it warranted an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show back then. Team captains Nicholas Bottini and Louis Reale accepted the trophy on national TV.Everybody looked forward to getting out of frigid Buffalo and playing Florida State in far-off Orlando. Then the team was informed of the Tangerine Bowl's policy. It held a vote whether to accept the bid."There wasn't really a vote," Gergley said. "We had no choice. We had to do what was right. Besides, Willie was our leading rusher and scorer."You wouldn't know it by talking to him. Evans is 71 now, though he's the one guy who looks as if he could still play. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills after college and is in five athletic halls of fame."That's not the kind of thing you brag about," he said, "and I hope you don't spend much time on it."Imagine that, an athlete asking a writer to go easy on the praise."It's not modesty," Evans said. "It's how I feel about it."It's a feeling we could use more of in this chest-beating era. Maybe it's a generational thing, but the old Bulls love to talk about each other, not themselves. They were team that did everything together.If Evans and Mike Wilson weren't going to Orlando, nobody was going. What's more, if anybody has a right to scream about being victims of racism, it would be the 34 men in navy blue shirts Saturday night.There wasn't hint of bitterness in the section where they sat. Sure, they were mad young men 50 years ago. But after they told the Tangerine Bowl what it could do with its bid, they moved on."You can't hold onto to anything like that," Evans said.These days, people can't let go of the race card. The ugly finger Evans spoke of is still there. But the point gets lost when players like Milton Bradley interpret fan animosity as racial persecution.Or Sammy Sosa's bat explodes with cork and he blames the ensuing scrutiny on the fact he's Hispanic. Or Torii Hunter says Barry Bonds was reviled because he's African-American. Or Michael Vick is considered the victim instead of his dogs.If only these modern-day martyrs could have spent a December holiday in Buffalo instead of Orlando 50 years ago, they would appreciate what real racism is. The Bulls took a stand against it, even if they didn't realize what a grand one it was."It's just something that happened," Robert Muscarella said. "We made a decision and never really thought about it."Nobody really did until the Buffalo got the first bowl bid in school history last year to the International Bowl in Toronto. Then people started realizing it was actually the second."Now the story's been told hundreds of times," Stanley Kowalski said.Only now it's been told in a place where it all began. And it finally has a happy ending.
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Florida State's Dekoda Watson takes a piece of turf off the field for the FSU turf graveyard after beating BYU in an NCAA football game at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. Florida State beat BYU 54-28. (AP Photo/George Frey)
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UCLA quarterback Kevin Craft throws against Kansas State during the first half of a NCAA football game in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Francis Specker)
Brandon Crawford doesn't have any special plans for his 33rd birthday. It falls on a Sunday, an off day. He'll attend church, have a nice dinner, and probably listen to some music before he calls it an early night. Work cranks again on Monday. And Crawford needs to be rested and refreshed for Ball State football practice. Crawford, who likes to say he has taken a different path to get where he's going, is a senior defensive end for the Cardinals. The old-young fella can play, too. Crawford started all 14 games to earn this third letter last season, and the former Marine would love nothing more than to end his collegiate career with -- pardon the pun -- a bang. "I think my age has been more of a factor to everyone else than me," Crawford told FanHouse. "I've probably done a little more, heard a little more and seen a little more than my teammates, but I kind of blend in. I don't really stand out. When they ask me how old I am and I tell them, it's like, 'No. No way, you don't look like it.' How are you supposed to look? Am I supposed to have gray hair? I look young, I take care of my body, I can get out there and play with them. I am just taking it day-by-day and enjoying every minute." With good reason. Crawford, who turns 33 in less than two weeks (Aug. 16), is nearly twice as old as the team's incoming freshmen. He is older than three of the team's assistant coaches and graduated from high school the same year (1996) as the Cardinals' offensive coordinator. Looking for a different perspective? All-Pro quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots turns 32 Monday. Crawford's age, however, hasn't been an issue since he enrolled at Ball State in 2006. Good-natured nicknames of Old Man, Pops and Crawdaddy aside, Crawford brings life experience, perseverance, smarts and talent to the field. And those qualities will be needed more than ever this season as the Cardinals, under first-year head coach Stan Parrish, will be hard-pressed to repeat their MAC West championship with Western Michigan and Central Michigan expected to have strong teams. Additionally, new defensive coordinator Doug Graber installed a 4-3 defense during spring drills after the team ran a 3-4 the past four seasons. Graber wasn't happy with the level of fundamental play shown by his players, so the unit will need to make immediate progress when preseason practice opens.
"We've changed a few things around with personnel and we are still tweaking it right now, but everything should be finalized by the end of camp and we'll be fine," said Crawford, a second-team All-Mid American Conference selection last season. "We are just pushing forward, going through the process where we need to get back on the field and get to work." Crawford's certainly not afraid to work. Crawford earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice in 2008 and is currently working on a master's degree. Since Crawford, 6-foot-3, 260 pounds, realizes that professional football is probably not an option, he's looking at possibly joining the Secret Service or another branch of government next year. "Coming from that kind of structure, I would like to get back into that environment," said Crawford, who was recently named a nominee for the Allstate/AFAC Good Works Team, which recognizes student-athletes for their contributions off the field. "The way I was raised, I just want to be able to help the less fortunate. I believe you need to give back if you can and try to help out when you can." Crawford, who is single, traveled a winding road to Ball State, located in Muncie, Ind., from his hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind. Recruited out of high school by some mid-major programs in 1996, Crawford had his college career initially delayed by personal problems. He wound up spending a few years working in an automotive factory before joining the Marines in 1999. Crawford was dispatched to boot camp in California, including combat training, but he remained stateside with administrative duties in Cherry Point, N.C. He received an honorary discharge from the Marine Corps in 2003. Crawford actually enrolled at Ball State in the summer of 2004, but returned home after one semester to help his family. Crawford, however, couldn't shake his love for football, so he re-enrolled at Ball State and walked on the football team in the summer of 2006. He hasn't wasted his opportunities, playing in 37 career games, 27 as a starter. Crawford's also had a knack for military-like heroics. Last season he recovered a fumble at Miami University on Veteran's Day. In 2008, he blocked a potential game-winning field goal at Navy in the final game of regulation, propelling Ball State to a 34-31 overtime victory over the Midshipmen. He was also born in 1976 -- our nation's Bicentennial. Needless to say, the Cardinals have relied on Crawford's leadership and maturity, on and off the field. Ball State will have plenty of youth in the lineup this season, too. Redshirt freshman Kelly Page has stepped in at quarterback for Nate Davis, the 2008 starter and MAC Offensive Player of the Year. "I am there for my teammates, kind of like a big brother," Crawford said. "I don't try to push anything on them. I am there if they need to talk about something, and they are there for me, too." It also goes without saying that the Marines played a role in molding Crawford's personality, discipline and work ethic. Crawford says the military is more mental, football is more physical. "In the military I knew what was expected, I knew I would be pushed hard and lives were at stake," Crawford said. "But the loyalty, the camaraderie, and the accountability that we had in our military family carries over to football even though it's from different spectrums. In the Marines, you're dealing with people's lives. Football is just a game, but your teammates are depending on you as well. You have to be mentally tough out there, pushing yourself and pushing each other." And, when the time comes, let's not forget about singing "Happy Birthday" to Crawford, eitherAlmost 33, Former Marine Brandon Crawford Ready for Final Charge originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:00 EST . .
Another FBS head coach spot opened up on Saturday, as Steve Montgomery resigned at Miami University. The RedHawks completed a miserable 2-10 season this week with a home loss to Ohio."Shane Montgomery is an extraordinary person who has contributed to our department, university and community in exceptional ways," said Miami-Ohio athletic director Brad Bates. "Ultimately, however, our responsibility to Miami University is to maximize our students' development, and we believe that winning championships facilitates student growth and development in substantial and meaningful ways."It's pretty clear from that quote that Montgomery did not have much say in the decision. I guess that's what happens when a program hits the skids for a few seasons - Miami struggled after Montgomery took the RedHawks to a 7-4 mark in 2005. They followed that up with a 2-10 season, then a 6-7 mark (which included a trip to the MAC title game) and this season's stinker.Montgomery's biggest claim to fame might be helping to develop Ben Roethlisberger while he played in Oxford. He faced heavy expectations, being the head man at the "Cradle of Coaches" and all. It never really worked out, so both parties will move on.Montgomery Steps Down at Miami originally appeared on NCAA Football FanHouse on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:33:00 EST . .