Hacksaw: Hoke brings hope to SDSU football

Pomp. Circumstance. Promises

San Diego State has heard that all before in introductory press conferences welcoming a new head football coach. Every school in the country gets excited sweeping out the old and bringing in the new.

Fans and Alumni heard the same sales pitches in places like Laramie, Syracuse, Bowling Green, West Point and Manhattan (Kansas, that is) — some of the 22 schools that named new head coaches in the offseason.

Prediction Aztecs fans: Things will be different this time around. Meet head coach Brady Hoke and his two coordinators, Rocky Long and Al Borges.

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Hoke welcomes a veteran team back to Montezuma Mesa, a team that went 2-10 in a deplorable season of blowout losses and disgraceful defenses.

Hoke said all the proper things in typical coach speak. Yes, there were comments about hard work, academics, dedication, team, staff, school, administration, pride and more.

What he didn’t say is what you should pay attention to. The background of these coaches, and what they have accomplished, is why empty promises and pitiful failures of the past will be history.

The track record of these men speaks volumes — Hoke at Ball State, Borges at UCLA and Auburn; and Long at New Mexico, UCLA and Oregon State. This head coach, and those two coordinators will be the difference makers. They’ve rebuilt and won before and will do it here.

Muncie, Indiana is a cold, barren place come late October and November, especially when no one is in the football stands. Hoke inherited a program that at one point was 1-25. When he was done, Ball State football games were the place to be on Saturdays, regardless of the calendar date or the weather.

Corvallis, Oregon was the farthest outpost with the worst facilities and least amount of support in the football-crazed Pac-10. Oregon State was down for the count.

When Long arrived as defensive coordinator, he helped design a turnaround that made the Beavers a perennial bowl team. Then he duplicated it at UCLA and became head coach at New Mexico, where the Lobos became a very hard team to play and to beat.

The plains of Alabama can be a very unforgiving place if you don’t win football games in the Southeastern Conference. Auburn had not thrown the ball for years, but when Al Borges was done, he put running backs and quarterbacks in the NFL. Same is true at UCLA, where his offenses were dangerous, high-powered and creative. His packages rewrote the record books.

The Aztecs have overscheduled underachieved and had a horrific siege of injuries. The once-packed Aztecs Bowl was replaced by empty seats and losses at Qualcomm Stadium.

The bombs-away era of Marshall Faulk and David Lowery was replaced by a program that bombed out. One bowl game in 10 years. No bowl wins since 1969. That will change, because of Hoke, Borges and Long.

When Hoke took over at Ball State, he faced a wicked combination of losses, attrition and apathy. He left the Cardinals after a 12-0 regular season with a record-setting quarterback in Nate Davis and an offense that averaged 442 yards a game.

Borges designed and packaged an explosive offense that swirled around quarterback Cade McNown and a host of NFL running backs and receivers at UCLA. One year, those gutty little Bruins were 10-0 until a season-ending loss at Miami knocked them out of the championship game. Then he duplicated it again before the religious faithful at Auburn, where quarterback Jason Campbell and tailbacks Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams and Brandon Jacobs all wound up in the NFL.

Long, like a $2 bill, is not something you see every day. Neither is his “3-3-5″ defense, which calls for blizting anybody, anytime from anywhere. Long installed it at Oregon State, helped win with it at UCLA, and then used it at his signature calling card at New Mexico. Sacks, turnovers, controlled hell. That’s what his Lobos defense was all about.

Which brings us back to San Diego State. The Aztecs welcome back quarterback Ryan Lindley, the bright light from a dim football season. State has 12 veterans who had lots of playing time on offense. Thirteen veterans, who started many games, return on defense.

The schedule is downgraded, with Idaho, New Mexico State and Southern Utah as non-conference foes, and features the enemies — BYU and TCU — both at the Q. That should help as the arrow points up. So will this trio of experienced coaches.

Hoke’s sales pitch is simple. “We will be physical, play fast, and be intense.”
Borge’s ideals say it all. “We will not be passive on offense.”
Long, ever offbeat, chimed in. “We will dictate our terms to the quarterback, and make him cope.”

San Diego State fans may not know them very well now. They will be talking about them by the end of the season.

Aztecs football. Era of errors over. Hoke-Long-Borges will see to that.

Lee ‘Hacksaw’ Hamilton was the longtime Voice of the Aztecs and Chargers on XTRA Radio and will broadcast NFL games this fall for the Compass-Media Network. His columns appear twice a week.

Tags: Aztecs, Brady Hoke, Football, San Diego State, SDNN, SDSU

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Football, Sports . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.