In every discipline, there are different ways to skin the cat. And when Buffalo and Penn State tee it up on Saturday night, you will see polar opposite methods on each sideline.
On the home side, it’ll be James Franklin, one of the most formidably persuasive people ever unleashed in the college athletic realm. Penn State could not have possibly chosen a more effective man to reverse its recruiting fortunes after the anchor of the NCAA sanctions almost immobilized its program dead in the water in the early ‘10s. He has done what I believed impossible so soon, embracing and polishing the brand of PSU while flushing away the residue of the Sandusky scandal.
Franklin believes in the “Jimmys and Joes” mandate and never has Penn State had greater depth of dynamic talent than it does right now. He’s done it with nonstop salesmanship that, like all audacious pitches, defies impediment. He’s convinced dozens of young men that PSU is the correct choice for them almost by force of will, in spite of where this program was when he arrived. Talent has put State College back on the map.
On the visiting sideline will be his reverse doppelganger, Lance Leipold, 5th-year head coach of the Buffalo Bulls. He brought a team in here in 2015 that had no business competing with Franklin’s Nittany Lions and coached them into a 13-7 4th-quarter deficit with a chance to win. Only the coming-out party of, fittingly enough, the most talented man on the field, a Penn State freshman named Saquon Barkley, prevented Leipold’s team from pulling off a monumental upset as a 17-point underdog. The Lions won 27-14, but the game was in doubt quite late.
The difference is, when the University of Buffalo five years ago took a flyer on a 6-time NCAA Division III champion coach from tiny Wisconsin-Whitewater, it was flying very much in the face of college football hiring winds. A hire from the former method is much more common. Be it P.J. Fleck or Dino Babers, Tim Beckman or Darrell Hazell, the trendy choice is a guy who can win the press conference and sell hope first and foremost, a man with a low-major FBS pedigree who’ll move tickets before actually getting results, if he indeed ever gets them.
The latter tack is much more methodical and result-based. The teaching part, not the selling part, is the motivator. And fans and administrators really can’t see or hear that going on as can the athletes.
Coaches such as Leipold aren’t sloganeers. They won’t inspire headlines or reality shows. They’ll simply motivate their players with gradual proof that their methods work.
Because they aren’t born salesmen, they rarely recruit 5-stars. But they can really coach up the 2- and 3-stars. They find allies, kindred spirits in both players and assistant coaches, with passion for the sport, unquenchable desire to improve and a crazy competitive streak. They’re freaks, but in a good way.
Our culture has always valued sizzle over steak. I guess that’s probably part-and-parcel with our economic system. Capitalism often requires salesmanship more than it necessarily does a quality product.
Both methods can work equally well. It’s just that Leipold’s way won’t confirm itself until the win-loss record begins to turn.
I’ve seen it in both basketball and football. It can happen more quickly in hoops because you only need 8 or 9 really good players at once rather than 40 or 45.
Guys like Dick Bennett and Bo Ryan, for instance, who both coincidentally emanated from the same Division III wing of the University of Wisconsin state system as Leipold, got it going in practically no time. In Ryan’s case, Bennett pretty much built the Badgers machine for him in a couple of years and he just moved in and kept fueling it
In football, it can take longer. One of Leipold’s mentors, Barry Alvarez, needed three seasons of 11 total wins to tear the Wisconsin program down to its foundation before building it back up to 10-1-1 with a Rose Bowl win in his 4th year.
Leipold was nearing the culmination of such a process last year when his Bulls went 10-2 and won the MAC East before losing the conference championship game 30-29 to Northern Illinois, then the Dollar General Bowl 42-32 to Troy. Leipold’s tenure had been a slow, steady build for a UB program that has not had a single coach with a winning record among 10 predecessors in the past half-century. If Leipold can finish 9-5 or better this season, he’ll be the first.
If you didn’t happen to see his quarterback the past three years, well, you don’t run across recruits like 6-7, 230-pound Michigan native Tyree Jackson every day in the MAC. The conference offensive MVP in 2018, he wasn’t always an accurate passer but had a formidable and prolific arm that accounted for a whopping 3,131 yards and 28 TDs.
Unfortunately for Leipold, he made a hasty attempt at the NFL and is now paying for it. Jackson did not make a pro roster after spending training camp as an undrafted free agent with the Bills. He’s reportedly getting a tryout with his hometown Lions this week
Though he’s raw, part of the reason two different NFL clubs are trying like hell to rationalize hiring Jackson is that the word is out about Leipold. In fact, Bills coach Sean McDermott observed his methods and teaching acumen up close when the Bulls had to borrow the NFL team’s indoor facility. The two have gained a mutual respect. McDermott sings about Leipold to anyone who’ll listen.
Though McDermott ultimately couldn’t make room for Jackson, he still is mulling a use for former Bulls cornerback Cam Lewis. He was also cut free after going undrafted but was recently called back for the practice squad and may yet stick on the roster this season.
There’s a reason for this. Coaches like McDermott who’ve made it big in the business have a deep respect for counterparts like Leipold because they know there’s no BS to their teaching and organizational methods. They know a straight-up ball coach when they see one, better than most college administrators who worry first about filling stadium seats.
The folks at Louisville may have been forced into making such a hire but his first reviews looked pretty good last night. You may remember Scott Satterfield, another longtime FCS coach who made the transition into FBS with his school, Appalachian State. Satterfield went 40-11 with ASU at the FBS level the past four seasons after toiling there for the better part of two decades as a position coach, largely when it was an FCS school. That stint included last year’s 45-38 overtime loss at Penn State as a 23-point dog in the season opener.
Satterfield’s Mountaineers blitzed to 11-1 the rest of the year including a rout of Middle Tennessee in the New Orleans Bowl. That got him an interview at Louisville in December, though not at all as the disgraced program’s first choice. Such a tire fire was UL football after the final dysfunctional season under noted sleazeball Bobby Petrino that even favorite-son alum Jeff Brohm opted for the high road and snubbed Louisville to remain at Purdue.
That was, as they say, a bad look for Louisville. Its options were limited when it granted Satterfield an audience. He took the job.
And last night, rather than the pathetic band of Cardinals who basically quit the last half of the season under a coach they clearly didn’t respect, we witnessed a team that punched #9-ranked Notre Dame in the mouth early, took a 14-7 lead and fought throughout in a 35-17 loss.
It won’t be a quick fix. But brighter days are ahead for Louisville in the ACC under Satterfield. He would’ve been a very smart hire for his home-state North Carolina, but they opted instead to lure 68-year-old ex-UNC coach Mack Brown out of retirement rather than take a “risk” on somebody as unsexy as the plainspoken Satterfield. He only knows how to coach football, but that’s not enough these days. You must sell it, too.
https://www.pennlive.com/pennstatef...-college-vet-like-buffalos-lance-leipold.html
