Football Foundation

It’s been different this spring — not seeing Matt Viator incessantly spinning his whistle and pacing the field during the McNeese Cowboys workouts.

What was familiar and reassuring for the players, assistant coaches and fans alike was the constant presence of the energetic, vocal and commanding first-year head coach Lance Guidry.

There should be no doubt who’s pulling the levers of the program now, and just how comfortably in control he is. Guidry is beginning his 10th year as a McNeese coach, but this is his first as the head coach. Last December, he was named to the post, replacing 10-year veteran Viator, who left to become the new guiding force at UL-Monroe.

Guidry’s history is well known in the Cowboys’ circle. He had three stints as either defensive backs coach or defensive coordinator and top assistant jobs at FBS’ Miami of Ohio. He then went on to Western Kentucky. At both Miami and Western Kentucky, he was called on to be interim head coach. He led both teams in post-season bowl games.

The 45-year-old Welsh native is right at home with anything blue and gold and anywhere on the football field. “Being a college head coach is not as hard as being a high school head coach, where you wear many more hats,” said a laughing Guidry. “But here [one] is on a bigger stage and the expectations are really high. But I really appreciate being able to be in those situations — to be an interim head coach at Miami and Western Kentucky — because I got to see [the position of head coach] on a different level: the preparation for the bowl games and all the things that go with it. It’s a different dynamic, but you just switch the gears.”

Guidry and his newly revamped and restocked coaching staff completed three weeks of spring practice with the annual Blue and Gold game.

They got to see the finishing touches of a football foundation they’ve embarked on that will extend through the summer off-season and resume in August, as they prepare for the 2016 season opener Sept. 3 at home against Tarleton State.

There are many consistencies Guidry brings to the table: an expansive knowledge of the game, broad experience, exposure to different coaching styles and schemes and most of all, his patented passion and genuine love of football.

I would think besides practice schedules, depth charts and locker assignments, Guidry’s first priority in preparing for his inaugural spring as head coach was attitude and the way in which his players and coaches brought their emotion for the game to the field.

“We created it in the off-season,” said Guidry. “We made it fun, but it was competitive and hard. From the meeting rooms to the practice field, it’s going to be fun and competitive. I want them to have a good time. I always tell them it’s like being a little kid, and your momma tells you to go outside and play. That’s what practice is: a chance to play, not practice. I tell them every day, ‘Fellas, we are coming out to play, not practice.’ I have not seen any indication that they are tired and want practice to end, and that’s a good thing.”

Inside all that play time, there was real football work and figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of these Cowboys so the staff can study them before pre-season drills in August.

Guidry noted the real positive surprise was the efforts of an offensive line that lost three starters from a year ago. He likes the o-line and how they are blocking a “really good defensive line.”

That defensive line could be the team’s stronghold, as it returns a talented group anchored by budding superstar defensive tackle Isaiah Golden. The D-Line also welcomed back former starting defensive end Brian Hine, who sat out all of 2015 with a micro-fracture knee injury. Hine worked limited snaps early in spring, but by the latter stages of practice, he was pulling full reps.

“At this point, with the knee brace and rehabbing, there is still pain,” said a confident Hine. “But I am working through it.  It’s not like an ACL injury where you can rehab it and get into full speed. I’ve had that before. This injury is more tedious and more nagging. But by the start of the season, it’s not going to hold me back.”

Hine will bring his high motor, speed off the snap and intense leadership to a defense that will transition to new leaders like safeties Dominique Hill and Andre Fuller, who had two interceptions in the spring game. “He’s been on the verge of starting for us, but sat behind Aaron Sam, and then Wallace Scott (two former All SLC star defensive backs),” said Guidry. “He’s more than ready to be the guy and the QB of the defense.”

New linebackers coach Charlie Ayro has a trio that will turn heads this season. Ashari Goins, Christian Jacobs and Ed Duplessis will be defensive stalwarts, along with Golden, who will no doubt garner pre-season All SLC honors and NFL attention.

New defensive coordinator Tommy Restivo is described by a few of his players as “cool and a bit more mild-mannered” than the previous DC. Restivo is sticking with the 4-2-5 defensive alignment the Cowboys have been running for decades, but has the green light to change and tweak what he sees fit.

“I bump some ideas off him (Guidry) and he bumps ideas off me, and we are working great together. At the end of the day, he lets me do my thing. He makes a suggestion and I take a look at it, and we work together on what we are doing defensively. I love coach Guidry. He gave me an opportunity here, and now I have to produce.”

Most of the Cowboys’ question marks will center on an offense with a revamped line and a new starting quarterback in Grant Ashcraft.

The 6-foot, 6-inch, 220-pound Ashcraft was a highly regarded recruit from Humble, Texas, three years ago. When Daniel Sams transferred from Kansas State and started for two years, Ashcraft’s ascent to the position was delayed, and he patiently waited his turn.

“It was difficult in the sense you come here and want to be on the field. It’s college and you understand the pecking order. It was tough being patient, though, especially when I was younger. So I had to mature a lot, which I did. I think it made me a better quarterback because I got to sit down, watch, and figure out how things work in college.

“I sat and I have paid my dues, and now it’s my time to go out there and prove I can be the starting quarterback.”

First, he’ll have to definitively prove it to Guidry and new offensive coordinator Landon Hoefer come August. According to Guidry, back-up quarterback Joe Lissard, who threw for 179 yards and a touchdown in a 14-0 Gold team win in the spring-ending game, is not playing like a No. 2, and “that’s good.”

It’s been made crystal clear to Ashcraft that the starting job is his to lose, and he is No. 1 on the depth chart. But it’s also an open competition that appeared to be quite competitive over those three weeks of spring drills. Guidry likes Ashcraft’s length and his ability to extend plays, but freely admits the obvious — that he’s a pocket quarterback first and foremost.

“Grant has always been a quarterback first [and not a true run threat]. He will be a happy medium between the pass and run. We won’t have a lot of run plays designed for Grant, but he will have to pull the ball and run on some read stuff,” said Guidry.

Ashcraft concurred, noting that when Ashcraft is forced out of a pocket, he’s mobile and shifty enough to elude pressure, and can and will make plays with his legs. But “it’s not really what I will build a foundation on, because that’s just not the kind of a player I’ve been.”

With a few scripted scrimmages, the offense under Hoefer does have a different look and approach than Viator’s schemes of the past. “It’s completely different from what we’ve been doing,” said Ashcraft. “[That] He (Hoefer) has broken it down and simplified it for us to learn has been awesome. We’re fast-paced, but that doesn’t mean we are going to go fast. We have the ability to go fast when we need to. [We’re] being patient. It’s a long process. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

That lengthy process Ashcraft referred to is probably in chapter three of a 10-chapter playbook.

Ashcraft was 11 of 23 for 82 yards in the Blue-Gold game. His best play — a 56-yard hook-up for a score with Kent Shelby — was negated by a holding penalty.

The core of the offense will still center on the running game, which will be led by the “Texas Terrors” — the Ross brothers. There’s Ryan, a junior returning starter, and his little but much bigger younger sibling — the 250-pound Lawayne, who had to shed 20 pounds during off-season work.

Receiving targets in Shelby, Tavarious Battiste and Kylon Highshaw are talented and productive. Tight ends Zach Hetrick and DeonDre Skinner, when used in the passing game, could be viable options if Hoefer can get them in the flats or downfield.

The Texas Tech-trained Hoefer will have the rest of the summer and August camp to set the schemes and formations and try to finalize his personnel packages. Once that’s accomplished, Guidry intends to stick with what his Cowboys end up doing best.

He flatly says they won’t be hard to figure out.

“At the end of the season, you have to do what you do in order to win play-off games. You can’t trick people in the play-offs. So you have to be good at what you do (offensively). When we got beat by Sam Houston … Sam ran the football, and we knew what they were going to do, but they wanted it worse than us.”

To that end, Guidry is demanding his team and coaching staff set their goals higher than just a Southland Conference championship.

Some head coaches I’ve known and covered over the years were superstitious, and avoided the words “national championship” over off-seasons, during camps and through the course of the season. The prevailing thoughts were: Never put the cart before the horse. Play ’em one game at a time. Win the non-conference part of the schedule. Move on to winning your league games and capturing a conference title. Get into post-season. And then maybe, just maybe, grab the brass ring of a national title.

That’s not Guidry’s plan. He says it’s time for McNeese to aim and reach for a ring much higher on that ladder.

“My goals are real lofty and our fan base’s goals have always been real lofty. You know Jimmy Johnson (former national championship-winning head coach at the University of Miami and three-time Super Bowl-winning coach of the Dallas Cowboys) made a statement that I really love and like living by. He said, ‘We are not going to be safe to be good. I am going to take a chance to be great.’ And that’s my mentality.

“I want to win it all. I’m not worried about getting the most wins in McNeese history. I’m trying to be the first coach to win the national championship. If you don’t talk about it with the players, it will never happen. If our goals were always set on just winning conference, then that’s all you’re going to get. If we don’t talk about [winning a national championship], then it’s not going to happen.”

I told you McNeese has a different breed of sheriff running the Cowboys now.

Loud, vocal and passionate … no doubt.

Confident and brash … indeed.

Intense and driven … clearly.

Setting a championship tone right out of the gate … obviously.

Just doing what he said he would do.