Guy’s focus on the future
It isn’t hard to find a critic of the USU football program. With only six wins in the past three years and players being kicked off the team in that time span for various problems, one can understand this. How does head coach Brent Guy, who just completed the third season of his five-year contract, handle the firestorm of criticism? “To be quite honest with you, I don’t,” Guy said Tuesday. “People have a hard time believing that I (only) read USA Today, and if it’s in USA Today I know about it. Other than that, I don’t really read local (newspapers). I don’t listen to any kind of talk radio, and I don’t even know how to get on to the chat rooms.” He pointed to the current situation at the University of Arkansas, where Houston Nutt – a former teammate and friend of Guy – resigned Monday as head coach to help correct a division among fans after the off-the-field problems were compounded by a difficult season. The Arkansas Razorbacks had begun the year ranked but only finished with a 4-4 mark in the Southeastern Conference. “I have seen it tear coaches apart, families apart,” Guy said. “Nutt basically destroyed a good legacy there … I don’t get involved with (criticism). I really can’t affect people’s opinion other than winning and losing. I have to concentrate on making the team better and keeping the team together. “It’s America,” Guy continued. “They have a right to their opinion. I just hope that anybody that’s a critic is also a donor. That would be the only thing I would say is I don’t think you have a voice unless you donate money and have season tickets. As long as you do that, you have every right to criticize me in any kind of form you want. If you don’t, I would think you’d have a hard time criticizing someone if you don’t have a vested interest.” Another important aspect Guy pointed out is the difference in the degree in difficulty between the Western Athletic Conference and the Sun Belt Conference, where the Aggies competed in during the 2003 and 2004 seasons. “I don’t think people realized how far we were away from being a WAC team,” Guy said. “I mean that by the level of play. I don’t think we’ll ever see a Sun Belt team play in the BCS. They’re champion doesn’t break the Top 25.” The Aggies, who ended the 2007 season with two consecutive road victories, are the first USU team to win back-to-back games in the WAC, home or away. Even so, Guy said the nature of his profession makes it nearly impossible to feel a sense of job security. “You never really feel secure in coaching because anything can happen,” Guy said. “You don’t coach out of fear, you coach what you believe in and your fundamental philosophies. The administration came to me well into the season and said keep doing what you’re doing.”
RECRUITING From now until February, with a moratorium between Christmas and New Year’s, Guy and his coaching staff are on the recruiting trail. Guy said some of his coaching staff went straight out to recruit instead of returning to their homes after Saturday’s win. Currently they are in Kansas, Texas, Arizona, Utah, California and soon to be in Las Vegas. The biggest position vacancies to fill center around what wide receiver/return specialist Kevin Robinson did, as well as the quarterback position left open with the departure of Leon Jackson III. “Boy, that’s gonna be big shoes to fill,” Guy said of Robinson. “We’ve got to find a playmaker that might be at the junior college level that is able to make guys miss.” At the same time, Guy is realistic. “(Robinson) ended up being the NCAA leader for all-purpose yards. I don’t know you can say we’ll go get a guy that will do the stuff Kevin has done sine I’ve been here. But we need more guys like that to compete with the top half of the WAC conference.” Guy said the message to attract high school and junior college is the WAC, the north end zone facility, the two-game win streak, a solid education and a safe community. “The thing we try to find are guys who want to get a degree and want to play college football,” Guy said. “We want guys who want to do both.”
OFF-SEASON SETUP At the end of the 1-11 campaign in 2006 – a season Guy admits was much more difficult than ’07 – he and his staff revamped the off-season program in hope of more positive results in 2007. Guy said this off-season the lifting program and walking through things with the team will remain from the ’06 changes. The one thing he said will change slightly is a more competitive atmosphere among the team “to keep that winning edge.” “Without question … there’s a better understanding that it’s not about who gets the credit, it’s about winning,” Guy added. “I think the guys understand that more than they ever have. They understand more about chemistry, unity and camaraderie. When I first got here, we had a lot more individualism. We’re starting to finally get that weeded out of program.”
2008 SCHEDULE Guy said the Aggies open up on the road against University of Nevada at Las Vegas and Oregon before hosting both Utah and Brigham Young University. After that will come WAC games – a schedule Guy said is set when ESPN gets its TV schedule done. In all there will be six home games, the most for a Guy-coached team. -samuel.hislop@aggiemail.usu.edu