A little more time for the Long run

08-31-2006

By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Hall of Champions

Once again we’re painfully reminded in San Diego it’s s-o-o-o hard to turn around a college football program that had sunk to the depths of little talent and less depth that the Aztecs bottomed out at in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In this era of scholarship limitations, it takes more than a new football coach to turn around a program that can’t match up in the trenches. That’s what held back Tom Craft’s rebuilding efforts on both sides of the line of scrimmage the past four years.

And that’s what limited the Aztecs on the offensive side of the ball Thursday night in Chuck Long’s debut as SDSU’s head coach in a 34-27 loss to UTEP before 34,723 fans at Qualcomm Stadium.

But that doesn't mean it's wait until next year. There’s still time to catch up in the remaining 11 regular-season game this year since the Aztecs have caught up on the defensive side of the ball. After all, that’s half the battle, and SDSU made a comeback with three second-half touchdowns behind backup sophomore quarterback Darren Mougey.

But it’s not as easy to turnaround a program in a Mountain West Conference that is balanced in talent and deep in coaching as it was for the Aztecs’ in their former association with the shallow Western Athletic Conference.

Rebuilding a program into a consistent winner in a conference against coaches the likes of Sonny Lubick at Colorado State, Rocky Long at New Mexico, Fisher DeBerry at Air Force and others that have been around – Urban Meyer at Utah, John Robinson at UNLV -- isn’t easy as it was in the old WAC with its steady diet of soft touches.

For a brief period it looked like an old WAC game at the Mission Valley stadium. The Aztecs moved the ball and took a 3-0 lead in their Marshall Faulk-era uniforms that SDSU broke out Thursday night and wore when it used to beat up that school from El Paso with the funny name and pumpkin helmets.

But those days are long gone, despite the misguided perception of many in San Diego that the MWC is a bad conference. MWC teams routinely win bowl games against schools from Bowl Championship Series conferences.

UTEP and veteran coach Mike Price benefited from still playing in the WAC his first year in El Paso in 2004 before UTEP joined Conference USA in 2005. In 2004, UTEP romped over non-conference, Division I-AA Weber State and then beat weak WAC opponents such as New Mexico State, San Jose State, Rice and SMU en route to building a winning attitude.

That was five easy wins en route to the bowl eligible number of seven while building a winning attitude and also finding a way to get three more wins over Louisiana Tech, Hawaii and Fresno State. Beating Fresno State was impressive, but Louisiana Tech and Hawaii are schools that can be beaten without requiring a physical advantage. That same year UTEP was routed by Arizona State, 41-9.

Rocky Long took five years to turn around New Mexico’s program after he left UCLA as the Bruins' defensive coordinator to return to his alma mater. It was slow turnaround to catch up in a balanced conference before the Lobos started playing in bowl games.

I once asked Long why some coaches are able to turn programs around quickly. Besides inheriting talent, he said some coaches have a personality that matches the team they take over.

That wasn’t a problem for Tom Craft, whose players loved playing for him the last four years.

And it’s not a problem for Chuck Long, who also has strong bond with his players.

As hard as it is for San Diego State fans to accept after watching Denny Stolz retire on the job, Al Luginbill lose control of his players and Ted Tollner fail to recruit at the level of his Mountain West Conference foes, Chuck Long’s turn at rebuilding SDSU still requires a little more patience.

Tom Shanahan can be contacted at 619-699-2334 or toms@sdhoc.com.