Dana Holgorsen glad to be back in Power 5 league
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- No one really knows what flashed through Dana Holgorsen's mind on Wednesday when he and his University of Houston football contingent walked into the massive, opulent AT&T Stadium for Big 12 Media Day.
It was, in a way, a homecoming for him. He was back where he always felt he belonged, back in the big time.
You kind of figure he didn't think that way when he left the ranks of career assistant coach to take over as head coach at West Virginia back in 2013, but you know how hard he celebrated that and for how long.
It was his break, his step into big time football with a program of his, one in which he could work out his Air Raid magic and, he will admit, he celebrated accordingly.
But it was different this time around. He was older, maybe wiser, probably not calmed down one bit. He seemed to burn out at WVU and the bright lights of big city Houston life drew him to it like a fly heads toward a burning bulb.
While the lifestyle fit him, the football didn't because it wasn't Power 5 football.
And he missed that. You could tell it by his reaction to Media Day.
"We're personally excited to be back, this is a special deal," Holgorsen said. "The last four years have been a little different for me being in the American Conference and it really makes you appreciate a conference like the Big 12. It's exciting to be the new guy again."
And it wasn't only Holgorsen returning to the big time.
It was the University of Houston, too, which had had some amazing runs back in the old Southwest Conference days before being snubbed when it disbanded and merged with the Big Eight, leaving the Cougars out in the cold.
Houston had always been something of a maverick program, reaching its greatest heights under Bill Yeoman but also sent into NCAA prison for his almost unheard-of recruiting violations.
Wikipedia tells us that in 1988 the school was sanctioned for almost 250 violations and was hit harder than any program ever had been previously, going on probation for five years, being banned from bowl games for two years and kept off live television for a year while losing 15 scholarships.
The NCAA added that it would have been much worse had Yeoman not left the school following a 1-10 season.
So, Houston -- like the man they would eventually hire in Holgorsen -- had tasted the big-time success and had liked it, clamoring for it ever since but being turned down on every attempt it made, including by the SEC.
Now, as Oklahoma and Texas left the Big 12, there was a huge void in the conference and Houston, a city of 6 million people, a big-league city, was inviting them back and it became official with an on-campus celebration.
Holgorsen skipped it, instead vacationing in Cabo, Mexico, with his family.
"I'm tired of celebrating," Holgorsen said at media day, using words he had not uttered while at WVU. "The official announcement was 18 or 20 months ago; we've been preparing for this moment.
"The official drop-the-ball celebration, I just wasn't really interested in skipping the vacation for it. They did a midnight toast that they wanted me to be a part of, but after a long day golfing and eating and drinking in Cabo, I didn't think that would be a good thing for me."
Do not take this as being a new Dana Holgorsen, however. He seems very much like the old Holgorsen, right down to his Red Bull.
"I'm actually sponsored by Red Bull now," Holgorsen told the hosts of a Houston fan website during media day. "They send me care packages."
That might be worth more than $100,000 a year, although Holgorsen admits he's trying to moderate.
"I do that more afternoon. I try not to drink one before noon. I do espresso or coffee, whatever I can get my hands on. After noon I get me a little ripple and see where the rest of the day goes."
Holgorsen, of course, was hired at West Virginia to act as a coach in waiting behind Bill Stewart for a year as the team readied itself for its move to the Big 12, a coaching change as screwed up as is the basketball transition they are trying to negotiate presently with Bob Huggins.
Having gone through the transition once, Holgorsen is the perfect man for the job, if not the same football man he was.
Gone, he says, is his emphasis on the Air Raid offense that made him famous.
"I've been doing things the one way for a long time, the Air Raid way," he said. "But I've evolved and developed."
Still, the Air Raid was important in helping him figure out how to make the move up, for Georgia coach Kirby Smart invited him this year to speak on the Air Raid to a high school coaches clinic he held and Holgorsen used it to see how far big-time football had progressed since he left WVU.
"What they are doing in Athens right now is on another level," Holgorsen marveled. "I've been to a lot of camps. I've been to NFL camps, to Alabama, a lot of places, but they are doing so much more.
"Just the commitment from the athletic department, from the funding to how they feed them, how they practice, how they lift, what their staff looks like. It's big time and clearly it works because they are back on top.
"They were gracious enough to open all their doors and I took a lot of ideas out of there from what their building looks like; what the day-to-day for the student-athlete looks like. We have been designing our building the last six months and it changed a lot of our thoughts."
Media Day, however, symbolically turned him back into a football coach. He is now thinking about the game, the season, and while he isn't an Air Raid coach any longer, he is a quarterback coach at a school that prides itself on quarterbacks, going back to Andre Ware and David Klinger, as well as Case Keenum, who Holgorsen tutored when he was offensive coordinator at Houston.
The last few years he leaned on the arm of Clayton Tune to run the show, but now must go into the Big 12 without him.
He isn't worried.
"We went out and identified Donovan Smith pretty early and went hard on him. He's got 21 games under his belt (before transferring from Texas Tech. He's been wanting to come to Houston and try to be the guy. I'd be surprised if it's not him. He's the leader in the clubhouse right now and I'd be surprised if it's not him."
His transfer to Houston from Texas Tech is one of those things that Power 5 football offers Holgorsen that he didn't have before in the American Conference.
Being in the Big 12 means everything," Holgorsen said. "We're not recruiting any different. We just don't get told no. We came to Houston and they said we'd have a shot at the top players. We did, but at the end of the day they'd say, 'Coach, I just want to play Power 5 football.'
"I'd tell them, 'I don't blame you. I want to coach Power 5 football.'"
Now both can do that together.