Kalani Sitake watched his Oregon State players allow 674 yards and 52 points to Oregon in his last game as the Beavers’ defensive coordinator. BYU hired him as coach, anyway.
Dave Aranda’s Hawaii’s defense gave up 363 yards passing and three touchdowns to BYU’s Riley Nelson in the coach’s final appearance with the Warriors. Gary Andersen brought him to Utah State, anyway. Aranda, who now works for LSU, ranks among the country’s best defensive coordinators.
The lesson? Be careful how you judge football coaches.
That’s not to completely undo the 1,000 words of my cover story about Troy Taylor, Ty Detmer and David Yost, the offensive coordinators of Utah’s FBS programs, or diminish the importance of jobs they’re paid a lot of money to do. Their work will be fascinating to watch this season as they work with offenses that need a jolt.
Yet after 50-plus years of being immersed in college football, I finally recognized the truth, as often spoken by Andersen, now Oregon State’s coach: “Players make plays. Players win games.”
Clemson’s winning sequence vs. Alabama in the national championship game in January drove home that point. For all of coach Dabo Swinney’s motivational ability and co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott’s play-calling, the Tigers won because of what quarterback Deshaun Watson and his receivers did on that 68-yard drive. Mike Williams and Jordan Leggett aggressively went after footballs in the air and caught them, and Clemson rallied for the 35-31 victory.
In that moment, as I watched the telecast, Andersen’s cliché came to life. It hit me like what happens to James Franco’s character in the movie “Why Him?” He’s in awe when his future father-in-law says stuff like, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and “That’s life,” fully believing the guy thought of those philosophical statements on his own.
Players make plays? Players win games? Wow. They actually do.
That’s a shocking discovery for someone who values the coaching profession as much as I do. I’m a son, brother and uncle of coaches who have worked for 17 college programs — some you’ve heard of (Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU) and some you haven’t (Missouri Western, Augustana). And my own job involves evaluating coaches’ work, on the logic that they’re the ones responsible for their teams’ performances. That’s fair.
But winning takes players, period.
Aranda’s 2011 Hawaii defense, the one Nelson shredded, ranked 73rd in the country in yards allowed. Sitake’s 2015 Oregon State defense, which gave up 40-plus points seven times, finished 116th. Each of the past five seasons, at Utah State, Wisconsin and LSU, Aranda’s defenses have ranked in the top 15. Sitake’s Utah defenses were consistently excellent, and BYU tied for 28th in total defense under Sitake and coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki last season.
Yet in 2015, with Sitake and Tuiaki coaching them, the Beavers couldn’t stop anybody while going winless in Pac-12 play.
Another example: How did Utah beat Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl? The Utes had better players. I’m not kidding. Kyle Whittingham, Andy Ludwig and Andersen may have outcoached Nick Saban’s staff, but they also had 16 players on the roster who would be drafted and/or have extended NFL careers.
And that’s why Utah will be especially interesting to watch in 2017. The Utes sent 16 rookies to NFL training camps this summer. Not all of them will make their teams, but the volume is a sign that Utah’s personnel finally has been restored to the Sugar Bowl level. And that means the Ute coaches have a lot of talent to replace. If they’ve recruited and developed players sufficiently, they’ll win another nine games or more. If not, they won’t — no matter what Taylor draws up.