Dykes in Ruston

Dykes in Ruston

by Jimmy Watson



excerpt;
Q: What type of offensive philosophy do you plan to employ?
A: "When you start a football program, the first thing you have to do is consider how the offense and defense works together. That's something that gets overlooked a lot in football where people might have an aggressive, attacking offense and an on-your-heels defense. So what you want to do is if you want to play aggressive, attacking football you have to do the same thing defensively. Then do the same thing on special teams. So that will be our philosophy "» to attack and try to play with speed on both sides of the ball and special teams as well.
"We walked into a fortunate situation here with (Phillip) Livas being such weapon in the return game. That will be a huge emphasis for us in trying to find ways to get him the ball. There's nothing that can change a game faster than a big special teams play. I know that's a strength of our football team already.
"We want to play disciplined football "» be assignment sound on both sides of the ball. Be smart and limit penalties. Be able to execute. At the end of the spring we need to be able to feel good about operating a base offense and base defense. Our challenge will be to get our kids on the same page and we need to do a lot of teaching in the spring, but we also need to spend a lot of time working on the fundamentals."



Q. As a BCS offensive coordinator, have you spoken with other coordinators about schools at Tech's level and positions that come open as possible landing sites?
A: "As a first-time head coach, you tend to gravitate toward people who share your philosophy. We used to call it the 'One-Back Clinic,' Which is archaic because now pretty much everyone is one-back. In 1997 we started this deal when I was at Kentucky, we went out and saw Mike Tice when he was at Washington State started the 'One-Back Clinic.' Hal Mumme was there. Gary Crowton was there. Kevin Sumlin was a young coach at the time. Chris Hatcher was there. Tony Franklin was there. Mike Leach was there. All these different guys sharing ideas with each other. At that time, we were kind of the outsiders of college football. The game has changed so much that a lot of us are now the norm. We've talked through the years."

Tony Franklin to join him soon as the Offensive Coordinator