A hot start, two humbling losses and a fistful of receipts: Inside Deion Sanders' first month of games at ColoradoDave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.Long before the world knew Mike Leach or Dana Holgorsen or any of the other oddballs, eccentrics and revolutionaries of the Air Raid fraternity, Hal Mumme was a high school coach in Copperas Cove, Texas, with a problem.
So Mumme, who had already gone from being the nation's youngest coordinator at UTEP at 27, was now 31, looking to reboot his career after the Miners' whole staff had been fired, and he had a wild idea. What if he made football fun? What if he actually used the entire field? Dustin Dewald blazed the trail in Copperas Cove. He was one of those players who got disillusioned with the drudgery of football in the 1980s, so he quit to join the golf team after watching his older brother get pummeled over and over as their QB.
Dewald threw the ball more than all but a handful of schools in Texas that year. There had been only two scholarship players in the previous 10 years at Cove, but he signed with Stephen F. Austin. Then, he went through the same cycle, quitting due to boredom and joining the golf team at Tarleton State. There weren't any college teams he knew of where he could replicate his experience. Until he went home to Cove to visit.
They went 7-4 the next year, then, by 1991, started tinkering and added the up-tempo element where they never huddled and ran plays at a frenetic pace. Opposing teams had never seen anything like it and had no idea how to stop it. In Dewald's accidental career, he threw for 12,045 yards, 115 TDs and set 25 NAIA records. He threw for 4,418 yards and 45 TDs in 1991, including one game where he set national records with 86 attempts and 61 completions.
So he made every practice consistent and repetitive and drilled until they were mind-numbingly boring. Do it until you can't screw it up, and let muscle memory win. And if it works, keep doing it. Mumme said he once called the same play 52 times in a game for Dewald. Mumme arrived at Valdosta after Cavan left for another job and, armed with talent he'd never had before, he initially made the same mistake he criticized other coaches for: He overcomplicated things.
Hatcher threw for 11,363 yards and 121 touchdowns and set 29 school records. During his senior year in 1994, he led the Blazers to their first postseason berth, advancing to the quarterfinals, and when it was all said and done set 29 VSU passing and total offense records. He won the 1994 Harlon Hill Award, often called the D-II Heisman, as the Blazers went 40-17-1 in his career.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: WashTimes - 🏆 235. / 63 Read more »
Source: KPIXtv - 🏆 443. / 53 Read more »
Source: KPBSnews - 🏆 240. / 63 Read more »
Source: 10News - 🏆 732. / 50 Read more »