Inside the Crazy Life of an Interim College Football Head Coach

Imagine someone handing you the keys to a Ferrari. You're free to take it wherever you wish, driving it as hard or as cautiously as you feel necessary. The only stipulation is that these privileges can—and likely will—be revoked at any point no matter how well you drive.

Come to think of it, that's not the only fine print. Your old car—the one that drove just fine before this dream scenario fell into your lap—might not be yours by the time this is over. It may be broken down and sold for parts when this is all said and done, which is something you'll need to consider at some point. Maybe you already are.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime, although you can't help but wonder what's down the road. Deep down you realize this may not end well, but you really have no choice but to jump in and drive.

And, man. Look at that car.

Welcome to the life of Dave Baldwin, conductor of one of the nation's most potent and surprising offensive attacks, interim coach at Colorado State and proud driver of a new dark green Ferrari, at least for the time being.

"There are a lot of things going on," Baldwin told Bleacher Report. "But that's what the coaching world has become."

It is both an honor and a shock to the system to be promoted internally in the month of December. There is nothing routine about this regular arrangement, although the situation has become familiar nonetheless. The Silly Season—better known as college football's frenzied hiring and firing stretch—has turned this time of year into a spectacle of sorts.

We track planes. We crash message board servers. We obsess over Twitter rumors, each seemingly more outlandish than the next. We search for the biggest names and best fits. We play armchair athletic director, trying to serve as the sport's unofficial matchmaker.

What we often breeze right past, however, are the teams (and the people) that are left behind. For every school hiring who hopes he is his program's savior, there's a roomful of players and coaches trying to process their goodbyes.

For every Florida, there's a Colorado State. There are always two very distinct, personal sides to every hire.

"I certainly knew it was coming," Baldwin said on the coaching change. "I had communications there. When it happened, how long it took and the circus involved around it, I didn't know. But when it finally happened, we knew it."

Jim McElwain's departure from Colorado State wasn't a clean break. While both sides appeared to leave on positive terms, the discussions regarding the buyout in McElwain's deal prolonged the inevitable breakup.

Rob Foldy/Getty Images

Eventually both schools found a middle ground to the tune of $7 million, an incredible sum that the Rams will ultimately benefit from. Once Florida agreed to the terms, McElwain departed for Gainesville after an emotional goodbye with his 10-win team.

"We all wished him luck," Baldwin said. "At the same time, we had bowl practices to get prepared for."

That's when Colorado State handed the journeyman Baldwin a team and the interim tag. After a brilliant season—one that resulted in nine consecutive wins thanks in large part to the nation's No. 12 total offense—the play-caller of such production got the call. Given his long history in the sport, the Rams couldn't have picked a better person.

"

Offensive coordinator/QBs coach Dave Baldwin (@CoachBaldwinTD) has been named interim head coach. #CSURams pic.twitter.com/0sD7x41DR5

— CSU Rams Football (@CSUFootball) December 4, 2014"

The 59-year-old began his career at Granada Hills Charter High School (Calif.) in 1978. By 1981, he was coaching the wide receivers at San Jose State. By '85, he had worked his way up to the same title at Stanford.

After bouncing around the West Coast, Baldwin landed his first head-coaching gig at Cal State Northridge in 1995, where he spent two seasons. He then coached San Jose State from 1997 through 2000, where he beat Stanford three times in four seasons and came away with a win over TCU—the nation's No. 9-ranked team at the time—during his tenure.

Since leaving San Jose State in 2000, Baldwin has held assistant jobs at Cincinnati, Baylor, Michigan State, New Mexico and Utah State before arriving at Colorado State in 2012, where he served as the offensive coordinator.

"He's a teacher before he's a coach," Colorado State running back Dee Hart told Kelly Lyell of The Coloradoan. "He'll kind of try to tell you how to do it before hollering at you and yelling at you and stuff like that. He's a really good guy that I think fits this program."

For nearly 40 years, Baldwin has coached football and traveled all over the country in order to do. He has seen the highs, lows and long hours that come with working in this business.

Even for him—someone who has seemingly seen everything—this presented a much different challenge. Still, it was a challenge he willingly embraced.

"The first priority is always the student-athlete and how you're going to take care of them," Baldwin said. "I accepted this so we could keep these students in the same basis that we needed to win a football game. That's why we play. We want to win; we don't want to just be competitive."

With Colorado State locked in to play Utah in the Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl this coming Saturday, December 20, Baldwin had little time to mull over the departure of his former boss and friend. But before any practice, recruiting meeting or bowl prep could take shape, Baldwin met with his players.

Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

There were no radical changes to the plan. There were no new philosophies shared. This was not the time to begin tinkering with the system.

"You're 10-2 for a reason," Baldwin said.

Still, the meeting was necessary. A new voice—the new voice, albeit a familiar one—had to be heard.

"I walked into the meeting and told them that this is status quo," Baldwin said. "This is your football team. You got us to be 10-2. No head coach called a play, no head coach made a tackle. It was you as a unit that understood what we had to do and followed through, and these coaches are still here to do the same."

So they went to work, just like always. On the field, the team made the most of bowl practices. Off the field, it confronted a critical time in the academic calendar.

Practice times and schedules had to be managed—and in some cases shortened—due to finals. And while his players mixed in their playbooks with their studies, Baldwin continued to recruit, a seemingly impossible task given the circumstances. It was a challenge he embraced head on.

"Even though we didn't have a coach, we had two recruiting weekends and they were very successful," Baldwin said. "You're still trying to recruit in that short period."

When he wasn't selling potential future players on the program, Baldwin was ironing out the necessary details of the weeks to come. Things like practice schedules and game plans for the No. 22 Utes took a backseat, at least initially, for the simple but necessary items.

When will the team travel? What will we do for meals? How many buses do we need? And what time should curfew be?

It's not just a matter of bringing a team together or ensuring that the necessary game plan is implemented. Simply getting to where you need to be is a tremendous undertaking, one an interim coach has to navigate in a sea of change.

"There are more hats you put on," Baldwin said. "But when they asked me to do it, I was excited about it."

Regardless of the circumstances attached, there is euphoria in being called upon to lead a 10-win football team, especially for a coach who has explored all depths of the success threshold over the past few decades.

At the same time, Baldwin is not oblivious to the elephant in the room: Even after one of the most successful seasons the program has ever had, no job is safe. Not his or anyone else's on that staff, even after all the success they experienced. And as planning for the bowl game has transpired, the work behind the curtain—out of sight and out of mind—has also unfolded.

This is the cruelest aspect of a cruel profession—a reality that no matter how much you accomplish, it still may not be good enough.

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Although Baldwin is the head coach of the team now, the interim tag is being utilized for a reason. It doesn't mean it can't (and won't) morph into something more stable and long term—and he's doing everything in his power to ensure that it does—although oftentimes that is not the case for coaches thrown into a similar situation.

"The insecurity of 10 coaches maybe not having jobs all of a sudden starts to set in," Baldwin said. "I'm fighting to keep a job here, and of course I want this job. I fought to get it. At the same time, you're trying to communicate and talk to people on the outside for other jobs just in case."

"Just in case" is a phrase all college football coaches know exceedingly well. It's why there's far more at stake than the possibility of a bowl win over a ranked opponent, an opponent Baldwin called "the best football team we've seen to date."

Coaches are trying to gauge their football futures. Families are putting their lives on hold, hoping they don't have to change schools, leave friends and change area codes. Lives are being impacted well beyond team meetings all because of one significant departure.

And yet, it is in the nature of the profession to put all distractions in the rear view for the people you've spent long hours with all season and for some much longer. It's the reason they signed up for the job in the first place.

Being an interim coach is a thankless exercise in nature, although these coaches aren't seeking applause. In many ways, they're acting out of instinct.

Baldwin, like every other interim coach this bowl season and beyond, will press on with the utmost appreciation of the opportunity he's been handed and a watchful eye on what's ahead. He will drive until he's told to stop, if he's told to stop, which is the only speed he has ever known.

"They asked me to do it, and I'm representing Colorado State University," Baldwin said. "I'm representing 114 young men who gave us a fabulous season. It may be ho-hum to a lot of people, but I have an opportunity to tell these players I want to continue on what you've done.

"That's special for me."

Unless noted otherwise, all quotes obtained firsthand. All stats courtesy of CFBstats.com.