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Get To Know The Great West: Southern Utah Hopes Confidence Brings Victories
BY JEREMY HOECK
jeremy.hoeck@yankton.net
EDITOR’S NOTE: The University of South Dakota will begin play in the Great West Conference this fall in football. This week, the Press & Dakotan will look at each of the four opponents in USD’s new home. This is the second story in the series.
The 2007 football season was anything but fun in Cedar City, Utah.
Southern Utah University was winless in 11 games — the school’s sixth losing season in seven years — with eight losses by at least 20 points.
Yet, last year’s schedule certainly didn’t play in SUU’s favor, as the Thunderbirds faced seven ranked teams in Division I Football Championship Subdvision (FCS), including a stretch of four straight top 15 opponents.
“When one thing went wrong last year, everybody hung their heads and blamed themselves. There just wasn’t a whole lot of confidence,” said senior lineman Austin Curtis, one of seven defensive starters back for the Thunderbirds.
“Even in the games we were in and something went wrong, it was always like ‘here we go again.’”
Last October, the T-Birds suffered a tight 7-3 loss to Montana, ranked No. 13 at the time, followed the next week by a narrow 23-22 defeat at Youngstown State, which was ranked No. 12. And in their late-season game against South Dakota State, the Thunderbirds at one point held an 11-point lead in the second half, only to fall by a 52-27 score.
Now, as Southern Utah enters the 2008 season, which opens Saturday at Air Force, it has a new head coach and a renewed focus on one thing: Winning.
“Most of these guys don’t have much winning experience,” first-year coach Ed Lamb said during a coaches’ teleconference on Monday. “The guys have really bought into the system we’ve brought. Nobody questions the things I've asked them to do.”
Nobody will also question the strength of Southern Utah’s 2008 schedule, which includes rematches with Montana, Youngstown State and Northern Iowa, as well as its four Great West Conference games — including a Nov. 15 home showdown with the University of South Dakota.
“It’s the mindset of our program that if we want to be the best, we need to beat the best,” Curtis said this week. “Those are hard games, no question, but playing those teams only prepare us more for the conference.”
League play will be where Southern Utah will be judged most intensively. The Thunderbirds, picked to finish last in the Great West, have won a total of three conference games in four seasons, and Lamb said the goal is to gain back respectability for SUU.
“It’s a strong conference. I cannot imagine there being a stronger group of five teams in any conference,” Lamb said. “We’re looking to earn our way back to the top of the league.”
To do so, the Thunderbirds will rely on 14 returning starters, including seven on defense and five on offense. Last year, Southern Utah scored an average of 16 points a game and allowed 37 — a number Curtis said “really bothered us during the off-season.”
“With our front four, we’re one of the top lines in our division (FCS),” he said. “Coach Lamb put an emphasis on the guys around us and not trying to do it all yourself.”
On offense, the Thunderbirds return quarterback Cody Stone (1,262 yards, 7 TD, 15 INT), running back Jamar Lee (73 yards, 1 TD) and wide receivers Nick Miller (35 catches, 1 TD) and Craig Gritton (33 catches, 1 TD). Curtis said the SUU offense is “further along” right now as it’s been in his three years with the program.
When the Thunderbirds make the trek to Colorado on Saturday to face the Air Force Academy Falcons, they will be facing a Division I-A squad that has scored in 181 consecutive games — the sixth-longest streak in the country. The Falcons were 9-4 last year in the Mountain West Conference and were picked to finish sixth in 2008.
For Lamb, this will be third way he has faced Air Force. As a player for Brigham Young University in the mid 1990’s, he faced the Falcons, and later did the same as an assistant coach.
Southern Utah enters the game as a heavy underdog — by as much as 31 points, yet Curtis said the Thunderbirds have seen how Great West teams can gain national exposure with wins over I-A squads.
“It’ll be great to experience that atmosphere, especially because it will our first trip,” Curtis said. “We’re trying to keep the game in perspective, but it’s our turn to be Appalachian State.”
The 2007 football season was anything but fun in Cedar City, Utah.
Southern Utah University was winless in 11 games — the school’s sixth losing season in seven years — with eight losses by at least 20 points.
Yet, last year’s schedule certainly didn’t play in SUU’s favor, as the Thunderbirds faced seven ranked teams in Division I Football Championship Subdvision (FCS), including a stretch of four straight top 15 opponents.
“When one thing went wrong last year, everybody hung their heads and blamed themselves. There just wasn’t a whole lot of confidence,” said senior lineman Austin Curtis, one of seven defensive starters back for the Thunderbirds.
“Even in the games we were in and something went wrong, it was always like ‘here we go again.’”
Last October, the T-Birds suffered a tight 7-3 loss to Montana, ranked No. 13 at the time, followed the next week by a narrow 23-22 defeat at Youngstown State, which was ranked No. 12. And in their late-season game against South Dakota State, the Thunderbirds at one point held an 11-point lead in the second half, only to fall by a 52-27 score.
Now, as Southern Utah enters the 2008 season, which opens Saturday at Air Force, it has a new head coach and a renewed focus on one thing: Winning.
“Most of these guys don’t have much winning experience,” first-year coach Ed Lamb said during a coaches’ teleconference on Monday. “The guys have really bought into the system we’ve brought. Nobody questions the things I've asked them to do.”
Nobody will also question the strength of Southern Utah’s 2008 schedule, which includes rematches with Montana, Youngstown State and Northern Iowa, as well as its four Great West Conference games — including a Nov. 15 home showdown with the University of South Dakota.
“It’s the mindset of our program that if we want to be the best, we need to beat the best,” Curtis said this week. “Those are hard games, no question, but playing those teams only prepare us more for the conference.”
League play will be where Southern Utah will be judged most intensively. The Thunderbirds, picked to finish last in the Great West, have won a total of three conference games in four seasons, and Lamb said the goal is to gain back respectability for SUU.
“It’s a strong conference. I cannot imagine there being a stronger group of five teams in any conference,” Lamb said. “We’re looking to earn our way back to the top of the league.”
To do so, the Thunderbirds will rely on 14 returning starters, including seven on defense and five on offense. Last year, Southern Utah scored an average of 16 points a game and allowed 37 — a number Curtis said “really bothered us during the off-season.”
“With our front four, we’re one of the top lines in our division (FCS),” he said. “Coach Lamb put an emphasis on the guys around us and not trying to do it all yourself.”
On offense, the Thunderbirds return quarterback Cody Stone (1,262 yards, 7 TD, 15 INT), running back Jamar Lee (73 yards, 1 TD) and wide receivers Nick Miller (35 catches, 1 TD) and Craig Gritton (33 catches, 1 TD). Curtis said the SUU offense is “further along” right now as it’s been in his three years with the program.
When the Thunderbirds make the trek to Colorado on Saturday to face the Air Force Academy Falcons, they will be facing a Division I-A squad that has scored in 181 consecutive games — the sixth-longest streak in the country. The Falcons were 9-4 last year in the Mountain West Conference and were picked to finish sixth in 2008.
For Lamb, this will be third way he has faced Air Force. As a player for Brigham Young University in the mid 1990’s, he faced the Falcons, and later did the same as an assistant coach.
Southern Utah enters the game as a heavy underdog — by as much as 31 points, yet Curtis said the Thunderbirds have seen how Great West teams can gain national exposure with wins over I-A squads.
“It’ll be great to experience that atmosphere, especially because it will our first trip,” Curtis said. “We’re trying to keep the game in perspective, but it’s our turn to be Appalachian State.”
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