College Football Nation: Herb Hand
2. The news that Syracuse will play Penn State in the new Meadowlands stadium in 2013 is a reminder that the Orange have a proud tradition. The Penn State rivalry once meant everything to Syracuse. The 1987 defeat of the Nittany Lions at the Carrier Dome remains one of the most emotional stadium scenes I have ever witnessed. Kudos to Penn State athletic director Tim Curley for honoring that history and not demanding a deal that tilts toward State College.
3. This is the time of year when coaches, a.k.a America’s workaholics, take off a couple of weeks. At random times Wednesday, I saw a tweet from Tulsa offensive coordinator Herb Hand in Hawaii and from Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen at Fenway Park. I’m guessing that one day this week or next, Alabama coach Nick Saban will take off an entire afternoon. A possible tweet: “Came home. Tried to take a nap. Watched film instead.”
Tulsa looks to revive the work ethic of past teams
Tulsa finished 2009 with a 5-7 record, its first losing record since 2004. During the two years that Graham was head coach, the Golden Hurricane posted a 21-7 record, appeared in the Top 25 and had played for two Conference USA championships. In 2009, Tulsa was more or less out of title contention by the beginning of November.
“No one was more surprised than I was that we didn’t go to a bowl game because that was far from what our expectations were,” Graham said. “I think one of the hard things sometimes is when you win 21 games in two years, the expectation is you’ve got to win 12. That was our expectation.”
After starting the season 4-1, Tulsa lost six consecutive games. The Golden Hurricane fell short on an opportunity to tie Boise State in the final minutes. They allow UTEP running back Donald Buckram to score with 29 second left. Houston kicked a 51-yard field goal at time expired. Southern Miss scored three unanswered touchdowns to pull away in the second half.
It’s not that Tulsa wasn’t competitive. It was just a play here or there that swayed the momentum and Tulsa couldn’t bring it back.
“We’re not far off, it’s just that every close game in ’07 and ’08 we won, and every close game last year we lost.” Graham said. “You have to look no further than leadership and coaching. We’re going back to work and that ‘we’ve got something to prove’ mentality.”
When the season ended at the end of November, Graham went right to work on preparing his team for 2010. He posted team goals on his door:
Conference USA champions, bowl champions, 14-0 BCS champions, 100 percent graduation rate.
And then he posted them on every locker and told each player to write the goals on his mirror at home.
There was no time to feel bad about what happened in 2009, there was only time to get better for 2010. The first step in that process was rectifying the offense. Tulsa had been dominant when Gus Malzahn and Herb Hand shared offensive coordinator duties. But when Malzahn left for Auburn prior to the 2009 season, Hand wasn’t able to steer the ship alone. So, Graham hired former Lake Travis (Texas) High coach Chad Morris to help. Morris takes Malzahn’s role and will call the plays. Hand will coordinate the running game and work the offensive line, and Mike Norvell will be in charge of the passing game.
Graham said the hiring of Morris was not a knock on Hand, but a chance to get Hand back to his comfort zone.
“The key is the partnership there,” Graham said. “Your offensive line coach has to be involved in a big way and naturally, Herb is one of the best in the country. It just allows him to go back to doing what he does best.”
Graham said that while there was disappointment about the way 2009 turned out there was never any quit. The players never stopped believing in the system and the coaches never stopped believing they had the makings of a winning team.
As spring football gets underway this week, the goal is getting back to the type of team that had enough fortitude to pull out those close wins and had the leadership to get through tough stretches in the schedule. Graham said he believes that while missing a bowl game was hard, the experience of doing so might make his team better in the long run.
“I think in a way it’s very, very tough to sustain that and you can take winning for granted,” Graham said. “That’s the one thing that we’ve talked about. We need to get back to that blue-collar mentality. That chip on our shoulder, got something to prove-type mentality. That’s the team we need to be.”
What to watch in Conference USA this spring
Central Florida Knights
Spring practice starts: March 19
Spring game: April 17
What to watch:
- The Knights will need to develop offensive line talent after allowing 2.54 sacks per game and failing to block for a rushing offense that ranked 82nd in the country. The Knights return all but two offensive linemen and have one coming in the spring.
- The quarterback battle will heat up with early enrollee Jeffrey Godfrey, who already has impressed coach George O’Leary. Godfrey will compete against Rob Calabrese for the starting role.
- The Knights will have to find replacements for three key members of the defensive line -- DE Jarvis Geathers, RT Torrell Troup, LT Travis Timmons. The defense was the main reason the Knights finished 8-5 and won their final five games.
East Carolina Pirates
Spring practice starts: March 22
Spring game: April 17
What to watch:
- With a new coach, a new system, and a crop of new starters, East Carolina will have its work cut out for it this spring. New head coach Ruffin McNeill needs to replace 15 players with starting experience, which won’t be easy with just a month to work.
- The most underrated positions the Pirates have to fill are punter and kicker. All-American Matt Dodge is gone as is kicker Ben Hartman, who set the school record for career scoring. Finding replacements for those two is a top priority.
- New offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley will be implement Texas Tech’s offensive system with just two scholarship quarterbacks and a team that relied on its running game. Riley is confident he can install all of his spread offense this fall, but there’s no telling how quickly the Pirates will pick it up.
Houston Cougars
Spring practice starts: March 27
Spring game: April 24
What to watch:
- The one thing that really kept Houston from an undefeated season was its defense. Brian Stewart, who was named the defensive coordinator in January, inherits a young team with a lot of talent, but he has some work to do to catch the defense up to the offense by September.
- Quarterback Case Keenum returns for his senior season, but his center, Carl Barnett, does not. Barnett started 39 games, so Keenum will have to establish a good rapport with his new center this spring. Blake Sargent, who was the backup last year, appears to be the front-runner.
- Even though the Cougars did not lose many starters on offense, coach Kevin Sumlin will look for more athletic players to rotate into the mix. Last season, 19 players had at least one catch and 12 had double-digit catches.
Posted by ESPN.com’s Graham Watson
G.J. Kinne grew up a Texas fan so his dislike for Oklahoma, the Longhorns’ rival, was ingrained in him at a young age.
When he was a redshirt freshman at Texas in 2007, he watched the Sooners defeat his Longhorns 28-21 in one of the more thrilling and agonizing games of the series.
When Kinne transferred to Tulsa at the end of that freshman season, he hoped for a chance to meet the Sooners and do what Texas couldn’t do that afternoon -- win.
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| Chris Graythen/Getty Images | |
| Tulsa quarterback G.J. Kinne is eager to lead his team to a win over Oklahoma. |
“I want to beat them because I’m at Tulsa now and we want to go undefeated,” Kinne said. “I want to play good and just prove to everyone that we’re the real deal.”
Kinne has proven to his coaches and Tulsa fans that he’s the real deal, and on Saturday he’ll get to prove it to the nation when the Golden Hurricane travel to Norman, Okla., to take on the No. 12 Sooners.
It will be the biggest game of Kinne’s young career, which has spanned just two games. Kinne was named the Golden Hurricane starting quarterback during fall camp after beating out Jacob Bower and Shavodrick Beaver. Kinne said he thought he procured the job by earning a leadership role on the team. Before Kinne even took a collegiate snap, his teammates voted him a captain.
Kinne’s drive to lead was developed out of necessity during his sophomore season of high school. In the spring of 2005, Kinne’s father, Gary Joe, was the football coach at Canton High School in Texas, and Kinne the quarterback. Jeff Robertson, a disgruntled parent of a football player, who though Gary Joe was giving preference to Kinne, came into Gary Joe’s office, said nothing and shot him in the stomach. Gary Joe called for help and survived the incident.
But while Kinne’s father recovered over the summer, football went on and someone had to lead the team.
“I was a boy my freshman year and sophomore year in high school,” Kinne said. “I was just out there having fun and it really changed. I was still having fun, but I definitely grew up. I was by myself pretty much that whole summer. I was pretty much the coach. We had different coaches around, but I led all the summer conditioning and summer throwing and all that stuff. I was definitely a coach out there my junior and senior year.”
Kinne transferred from Canton to Gilmer (Texas) High School his senior season and instantly became a leader and a captain. He earned respect as a redshirt during his one year at Texas, and running the scout team at Tulsa while sitting out because of NCAA transfer rules last season, Kinne said his only goal was to impress the coaches and his teammates.
“I just think I have that knack of developing friendships and earning that respect,” Kinne said.
When Kinne started the season opener against Tulane, he said he knew all eyes were on him. Tulsa coach Todd Graham had kept his starter a secret until the week leading up to the game.
But Kinne assuaged any fears by completing 15-of-20 passes for 211 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for 77 yards and a score in his debut.
“Week 1 everyone was kind of looking at me wondering, ‘How’s he going to respond? How’s he going to do?’” Kinne said. “I think that they found out that I’m going to work really hard in the film room and on the field. I’m a tough guy. I’m going to get hit and pop back up.”
Kinne’s attitude has Tulsa believing that this could be the year it turns the corner on a national stage. Since Graham took over as head coach in 2007, his teams have racked up 21 wins, but they have not defeated the two automatic qualifying teams they’ve faced. The first loss was a 62-21 shellacking by Oklahoma in 2007, and last year, the Golden Hurricane had a chance to put themselves in the BCS bowl conversation, but faltered against Arkansas.
“The dude’s a winner, I know that,” offensive coordinator Herb Hand said. “He’s been a real steady influence on our offense the past two weeks. He is probably as good a leader as I’ve been around. A tough competitor and done an awesome job of managing the offense and really protecting the football, which is one of the biggest things that we have tried to improve upon this year.
“He’s made great decisions with the ball and really made some big plays for us when things have broken down. We’re real excited about him.”
A while back I looked at some of the new coaches in the league, so I thought it was time to look at some of the new assistants. Several big-time assistants were added or promoted across the five conferences this offseason and here's my top 5 new hires heading into the season.
1. Tony Franklin, Middle Tennessee, OC: Who cares if he was fired from Auburn and was the scapegoat for that team's offensive woes? In the Sun Belt, he was fantastic with Troy and he will be again at Middle Tennessee. I must say that it's a genius move to grab Franklin off the waiver wire, especially when he's just a year removed from archrival Troy. It makes for an interesting storyline and an intriguing matchup on Oct. 6.
2. Herb Hand, Tulsa, OC: Technically this counts since Gus Malzahn was the name behind Tulsa's explosive offense last season. But Hand was right there in the war room and comes to the forefront with a slew of experience and new players with which to work. Hand knows the offense inside and out and there shouldn't be a dramatic change from what Tulsa has done in past years. That's good considering Tulsa has led the country in total offense each of the past two seasons.
3. Jeff Brohm, Florida Atlantic, quarterbacks: FAU quarterback Rusty Smith burst onto the national scene after a stellar season in 2007, but couldn't live up to the hype in 2008 after injuries and nerves got the better of him. Enter Jeff Brohm, who's coached a couple of great quarterbacks at Louisville, including his brother, Green Bay Packers backup Brian Brohm. Thanks to Brohm, Smith comes into the season with confidence and better technique.
4. Al Borges, San Diego State, OC: During Borges' three seasons at Auburn, the Tigers were 33-5 and Borges earned a lot of credit for helping Auburn to a 13-0 season in 2004. This is exactly the type of coach San Diego State needs to get its stale offense on par with the offensive juggernauts that rule the Mountain West. San Diego State was second-to-last in the Mountain West in both scoring offense and total offense.
5. Rocky Long, San Diego State, DC: Two new coaches from the same school is a stretch, but not when both are innovators like Borges and Long. The last time Long and Borges were coordinators on the same team was with UCLA in 1997. That year, the Bruins went 10-2, won the Pac-10, played in the Cotton Bowl and finished fifth in the final AP poll. Long brings his high-pressure 3-3-5 defense to a team that was 113th in total defense and scoring defense. It's one of the few defensive schemes that has been successful against the offensive talent in the Mountain West.
Few spread offenses are as innovative or productive as Tulsa's. It takes the best of several spread systems and creates a high-energy offense that racks up ridiculous statistics and high-scoring games.
Offensive coordinator Herb Hand has been part of the transformation at Tulsa that has made the Golden Hurricane one of the most-feared offenses in the country. He took some time to talk with me about the type of receiver he looks for in Tulsa's spread system.
What do you look for in a spread-offense receiver?
Herb Hand: The one thing that we always look for is explosive plays. Guys that can make something happen out in space and turn a 5-yard hitch route into a 60-yard touchdown. Or guys that have the ability to run over the top of coverages, who just have flat-out speed.
Do you think the spread gives opportunities to a guy who might be undersized or might get overlooked?
HH: I don't think there's any question about it. You look at a guy like Wes Welker that is from Oklahoma City that got overlooked by everybody and got a shot at Texas Tech. He's a great route runner. He just knows how to work himself into holes in the defense and get himself open and doesn't drop the ball, makes all the hard catches, and he's obviously had a great career. So those guys are out there. Now, could Wes Welker play in every offense in the NFL? I don't know. I know he does a heck of a job with the Patriots and they're what we consider a spread team.
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