Who says you can’t go home again? Not Matt Viator.
Viator left McNeese nearly 10 years ago for UL-Monroe, only to return to his old stomping grounds as head coach–the place where he had his most success.
McNeese athletic director Heath Schroyer took little time to find a replacement after firing Gary Goff. Schroyer announced Viator was coming out of a short-lived retirement and would be resuming control of the struggling Cowboys football program. The 61-year-old Viator was introduced at a Wednesday press conference and looked rested, trim and ready to work.
I doubt a hire of this regional magnitude happened over the course of a week or two since Goff’s firing. I suspect Schroyer and Viator have had several in-depth conversations, planning and negotiations to clear this path. The list of head coaches who left a program to return again is short. I can only think of one in recent memory, Mack Brown. Brown left North Carolina for Texas and eventually found his way back to Chapel Hill going on to coach the Tarheels for another five years.
Viator is a home grown McNeese blue blood. It’s his alma mater. After a successful high school run which included a state championship at Jennings, Viator joined the Cowboys staff first coaching linebackers, later as the offensive coordinator and then finally his 10 year stint as head coach. He is tied with another coaching icon Bobby Keasler as the school’s all time winningest head coach with a record of 78-33.
Diehard McNeese fans probably know the rest of Viator’s record by heart: four Southland Conference championships, three time SLC Coach of the Year, two time Louisiana Coach of the Year, numerous 10-win seasons and an always nationally ranked team. Viator was on the coaching staff when McNeese advanced to the 1-AA National Championship game. Viator got the Cowboys to the FCS playoffs five times as head coach but unfortunately never got a post season win.
His most notable season was his last; in 2015 McNeese was ranked #2 and garnered a third seed in the playoffs. Viator’s Pokes lost a heart breaking playoff to rival Sam Houston State. After the season, Viator took the head coaching job at UL-Monroe, the same place Keasler went after leaving McNeese.
His five years in Monroe were humbling. Coach V went 19-39 before being fired. It shouldn’t be a stain on his coaching resume because not many men have won in Monroe–not since Pat Collins captured the 1-AA title decades before.
I recall running into Viator last summer at a McNeese golf tournament and he shrugged off any notion about coaching again. He even mentioned a little something about those days being done and being happy in retirement. Clearly the coaching carousel, the mounting losses and the continual demise of the recent championship football program (that he helped build) stirred something in Viator’s gut.
Schroyer was at the right place, at the right time, with the right job offer and it pulled Viator back in the game and back home to McNeese.
“This program needed everything Coach Viator is: A winner. A man who embraces this community wholeheartedly. A man who will bring back structure, discipline and accountability. Under Coach Viator, we will return McNeese football to a winning football brand. We will bring back the pride, toughness and grit this program once had. We did all of that and more with the hiring of Coach V. I’m elated,” Schroyer said.
And he should be. Fans and supporters were restless over the constant losing and the program’s precipitous fall from the SLC’s upper hierarchy. And they let Schroyer know.
The Viator hiring and announcement was right on cue as the clock was ticking. The early recruiting signing period started on December 4 the same day as the press conference announcing Viator. Toss in the all-important transfer portal which opens on December 9th and there was no doubt McNeese wanted to send a clear message to high school recruits and prospective transfers on who was now running the show.
I covered Viator’s high school career, his rise from McNeese assistant coach to head coach and everything in between. He is a CEO-type head coach. A master organizer who’s high on structure, discipline, accountability and fundamentals. He checks all the coaching boxes this program desperately needs right now.
He has already begun the work of building a new staff and getting up to speed on recruiting. But his first order of business is convincing All-American linebacker Micah Davey to return to the Cowboys. Davey, a redshirt junior with a season left to go, entered the transfer portal this week. That doesn’t mean Davey is automatically gone. A player can be in the portal but decide to return to his team.
Current defensive coordinator Tony Pecoraro could be a critical piece in getting Davey to return for his senior season. He excelled in Pecoraro’s system averaging double-digit tackles and earning All SLC honors.
As of our deadline, Viator had not announced any coaching staff decisions or moves. It is possible he may retain some of Goff’s assistant coaches along with recruiting coordinator-transfer portal GM Aaron Ingram, who has done a stellar job with talent acquisition with little to no NIL money.
It is interesting and telling that Schroyer pulled a 180 and chose not to make the head coaching search national like he did three years ago in the hiring of Goff. He obviously knew that Viator was an hour down 1-10 in Lafayette enjoying a year away from his role as an offensive analyst for UL- Lafayette.
Viator was on the short list along with former McNeese quarterbacks and assistant coaches Tim Leger at ULL and Slade Nagle, the tight ends coach for LSU. But could Schroyer, with his skilled salesman charm, sell and close on a legendary coach like Viator?
“Through this process Coach was blown away by how much we have grown as a department and how much we now fund football. This is a completely different job than the one he left nine years ago. McNeese football is special and has been a sleeping giant for years now,” added Schroyer.
Now the difficult job of reawakening that sleeping giant falls on Viator. He inherits a roster that has been upgraded with talent and depth in some areas but is missing one huge component: an experienced, effective quarterback. There are voids and holes on both lines, the secondary, linebacker (with or without Davey) and tight end. The skilled positions at receiver and running backs have talent to work with but the questions surrounding former 4 star running back TreVonte Citizen must be answered.
To his credit, Schroyer pulled another rabbit out of his hat with the Viator hiring. His first magic trick was courting and then convincing former LSU basketball coach Will Wade to come out of NCAA purgatory and wear the Blue & Gold.
The Viator move was a Copperfield and Criss Angel-esque sleight of hand for Schroyer. Remember, McNeese basketball was on a historically bad stretch of losing seasons for over a decade. The football program is in similar dire straits having not won a SLC crown since Viator’s last championship in 2015. The Cowboys haven’t had a winning season since 2019 and their last playoff win dates back to 2002.
Schroyer knew he had to make a splash hire with the fan base because his end game is a jump up to an FBS conference and McNeese needs to win in order to do that. The football facilities’ ongoing upgrade includes a state of the art weight and training room and the completion of the new press box and luxury suites. A ribbon cutting is expected within 12 to 18 months.
An active NIL collective with tangible money is gaining momentum and Wade’s basketball success has brought McNeese athletics into the national spotlight.
The one missing piece? A consistently winning football program.
Since the end of the 0-10 football debacle of 2023, Schroyer hammered his message to anyone who would listen: Football had to win. Football had to contend for a conference championship. Football had to become regionally and nationally relevant again. And the clock was ticking.
Goff knew the raised expectations and that’s why he made changes to his coaching staff at the behest of Schroyer and brought in Aaron Ingram as football’s new recruiting/transfer portal coordinator with GM like responsibilities. The roster went through another massive overhaul bringing in an FCS record 59 transfers before the 2024 season.
The lynchpin offensive addition was supposed to be Montana transfer quarterback Clifton McDowell, who Goff hoped could finally get his Air Raid offense off the ground. The defense centered around All America linebacker Micah Davey. Those were the two proven alpha dogs that Goff was counting on to help engineer a historic turnaround this season.
The key was keeping both star players on the field which Goff could not control.
Davey went down in the first half at Texas A&M with a rib injury and was sidelined for three plus games. The next one to fall was McDowell with a dislocated finger on his throwing hand in the season’s biggest win at Weber State. McDowell played the rest of the way against Weber but was sidelined for much of the rest of the season.
It was a perplexing injury because McDowell was able to practice at various times in the ensuing weeks. Either out of an abundance of caution by the training staff or from McDowell himself, Goff never got his starting quarterback back in the starting lineup.
I’m going down the injury rabbit hole because the loss of McDowell cost this team two to three losses. You never can know for sure, but my gut tells me McNeese beats Houston Christian, Nicholls State and Lamar with McDowell healthy and under center.
Goff then goes from a 6-6 record to at least 8-4 or 9-3 at best and he may still be the head coach.
You know the line ‘injuries are a part of the game and every coach and every team has to overcome them.’ I don’t back away from that belief, but at the same time you can’t ignore the fact that injuries to your best defender and star QB will affect outcomes. You’re naïve or foolish if you don’t connect those dots.
None of this means a hill of beans (or even a bag of boudin) if Schroyer lost faith in Goff, his staff and their process. I contend the biggest problem that latched onto Goff like a bad rash was his inability to get the quarterback position right from day one.
He got the fan base pumped with promises of a high octane passing attack that would set the cannons ablaze with offensive touchdowns. But the first order of business was getting the right triggerman.
It started with FBS transfers Knox Kadem and Cam Ransom, who both were dismal failures. That led to QB-turned-receiver back to quarterback Walker Wood, which progressed (or regressed) to walk-on Ryan Roberts and then freshman Kam Sixkiller to end season one.
Year two brought new promise with Jr Co Player of the Year QB Nate Glantz, who struggled with turnovers, errant throws and progressions. Goff turned to Sixkiller again at some point over year two. Season three had McDowell anointed QB 1 from Day 1. The mysterious finger injury put the ball back in Sixkiller’s hands but then his penchant for picks forced Goff to call up third string QB Alex Flores to end the season.
If you can’t get the most important position on the field right then most everything else will go wrong. Much of it did.
There was a palpable sense of distance and angst between Schroyer and Goff since the 0-10 season. The defensive collapse from the 2023 season led to Schroyer’s demand for defensive coaching changes. The growing number of penalties (pre-snap, personal fouls and unsportsmanlike) began as whispers and led to shouts about the lack of team discipline. And then there was the playbook and practice videos allegedly hacked by a former Goff defensive assistant which may or may not have been shared with competitors. That and more led to a strained relationship between the AD and his head coach.
If any coach, on any level, in any sport falls out of favor with the AD then his or her days are numbered. A win over Lamar and the team’s first winning record since 2019 would not have saved Goff’s job. The deflating defeat to the rival Cardinals on the game’s last play, the abhorrent behavior and fighting by both sides and a chaotic post-game scene were all Schroyer needed to pull the trigger.
“After evaluating our football program, I felt a change in leadership was necessary,” Schroyer said in a written statement announcing Goff would not return as head coach.
Schroyer, who was given the autonomy to make coaching decisions by new university president Dr. Wade Rousse, added “we will not accept nor celebrate mediocrity.”
The statement ended, “We should be competing for SLC championships and be nationally relevant. I will find a coach who not only accepts that standard but embraces it.”
I don’t find fault in any of those comments. In fact because of McNeese’s tradition, history, recruiting base and fan support the Cowboys should be in contention for league football titles. But Schroyer, a former long-time college basketball coach who finished with a sub .500 overall record of 149-182, knows championships and relevancy are accomplished and built over time and one should not fall trap to society’s instant gratification whims.
I tend to be more patient with coaches and making changes unless there is a clear and present danger of a program’s demise. Lance Guidry, Sterlin Gilbert, Frank Wilson and Gary Goff: none of these McNeese head coaches held the job longer than three years. The problem with this frequency of turnover is not only coaching staff upheaval but mass changes in players, playbooks, processes, schemes, coaching styles, recruiting, portal usage and culture.
That’s a lot to unpack and repack the last decade.
McNeese’s football rebuild will soon begin anew with an old familiar face and name. Viator will use his vast experience and his thoughtful, analytical and measured approach to steer the program back on the road to winning. I’m confident of that.
Even a McNeese legend, a hall of famer, a blue blood and four time SLC champion like Viator will need time and patience. Two things that are hard to come by in today’s college football.
Catch Rick Sarro’s commentary and latest opinions on Soundoff on CBS Lake Charles on Tuesday and Thursday at 10:05 pm and on Saturday at 11 pm. Follow Rick on Twitter @ricksarro.
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