America's Team? With New Coach Rich Ellerson, Army Shall Return!

A thank you to Army's AD, Kevin Anderson, and superintendent, General Hagenbeck, for the wonderful Christmas and New Year's gift given to Army football supporters when they hired new triple-option football coach Rich Ellerson. After hearing him, it sounds like Coach Ellerson is just what many of us have been advocating for.

He's not someone uninformed enough like Todd Berry, a good man who made the mistake of thinking a wide-open passing offense is what Army needed. He's not someone like the famous Bobby Ross, who nobly thought long experience and success in coaching at the higher levels is all that is needed to be the savior of Army football.

He's not someone like the pro football great Stan Brock, who made the mistake of hiring an old buddy as offensive coordinator who had zero experience with option football.

He's someone savvy and informed enough, whose lifetime coaching philosophy has always been to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative.

His bag has always been turning negatives into positives, i.e., turning lemons into lemonade, by recognizing that the very things that are disadvantages in Div. I football, such as smaller size and quickness but not great times in the 40, are the very things needed for his homegrown style of triple-option football.

He has the insight and experience to know that triple-option football is perfectly suited to turning lemons into lemonade.

And, with his assertion that he even goes beyond the former Navy and now Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson's triple-option playbook, I think he will be burning opposing D's when they cheat eight or nine guys up into the box, with his triple-option, play-action, short, quick-pass dumps, and slants and seam routes, to the TE, SE, and SB/WBs.

I like that he alluded to the fact that the coaches compete with each other before and during games, his OC vs. the opposing DC and his DC vs. their OC, and the smarter, more clever, more innovative coaches win.

I look forward to Coach Ellerson and Army having an OC who is not necessarily one having long experience, but is one who is a "whole person"—bright, clever, creative, perspicacious, always two steps ahead of the opposition—and who has, of course, run the triple-option.

Check out this article about Rich Ellerson by reporter Justin Rodriguez.

Ellerson's admirers declare embarrassments are over

New Army coach called a 'genius,' 'scary' opponent

By Justin Rodriguez

Times Herald-Record
Jan. 4, 2009

He calls him the guru, the sensei, a genius.

Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo has long admired new Army coach Rich Ellerson.

Their relationship goes back to 1983. That's when Ellerson, then an assistant at the University of Hawaii, walked into Niumatalolo's living room in Laie, on the island of Oahu, to recruit him.

Niumatalolo—with no other offers—went to play quarterback for Hawaii. They later coached together at Hawaii, and Niumatalolo's been in touch with Ellerson since, picking his brain for information as he's risen from bright young assistant to head coach.

That's why Niumatalolo tells you this: There will be no more Navy blowout wins over Army. The Midshipmen have embarrassed Army with seven straight wins over their rival by a combined score of 274-71.

But that won't happen, Niumatalolo says, even though he wishes it weren't true. Not on Ellerson's watch.

"Army hit a home run with this hire," Niumatalolo says. "The guy is a genius and now, unfortunately, I have to go up against him. That's scary. Army is going to get better and we're going to have a battle on our hands."

However, before Army is handed the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, keep this mind: As it stands, Navy, with six winning seasons in a row and counting, is in a different stratosphere than the Black Knights. So is the other service academy, Air Force, which has two winning seasons in two years under enterprising coach Troy Calhoun.

Army has beaten Air Force just three times in the last two decades.

As for Ellerson? He inherited a reclamation project when he was hired as Army's 36th coach on Dec. 26. The Black Knights haven't had a winning season since 1996 and are 30-108 during that dark time. Navy has 69 wins in that span and Air Force 88.

Army has gone through four head coaches—Bob Sutton, Todd Berry, Bobby Ross and Stan Brock—since 1999. And if Ellerson, fresh off an impressive eight-year run at Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) Cal Poly, can't fix the once proud program, West Point could be viewed as a coaching graveyard.

Still, a lot of important people such as Niumatalolo think Ellerson, who turned 55 on New Year's Day, will raise Army from the ashes.

"I think Rich will have Army winning as much as Air Force and Navy," says Jim Young, who went 51-39-1 from 1983-90 at Army, winning two bowl games. "He's very creative in running the option and has demonstrated the ability to compete against superior teams and his teams don't have a lot of turnovers. That's what service-academy teams have to do."

That's what Cal Poly did against heavily favored Wisconsin, a Big Ten team, back on Nov. 22 in Madison.

That's what Army used to do under Young, and Sutton after him, breaking the spirit of bigger, better teams, such as Tennessee and Notre Dame, with a well-devised option attack and relentless defense.

Cal Poly, fooling the Badgers all game with an electric triple option, lost 36-35 in overtime. The Mustangs would have beaten Wisconsin if kicker Andrew Gardner didn't miss three extra points.

Ellerson first learned the option from former Navy coach Paul Johnson, now in the process of leading Georgia Tech to prominence, while the pair worked together at Hawaii in the late-1980s. Ellerson's attack is similar to Johnson's and he even picked his and Niumatalolo's head for tips on the option during a week-long stay in Annapolis a few years ago. Ellerson even enjoyed a family dinner at Niumatalolo's home.

Just like any good service-academy coach, Ellerson prepared well for Wisconsin. He even called the Badgers' defensive scheme. Ellerson scouted the Badgers and figured they would try to stop the option in a 4-3 even-based defense.

That's what Cal Poly's scout defense prepared for all week, and that's what they saw. The Mustangs — giving up 40 pounds per man on the line — outrushed Wisconsin 276-184.

"He's just a real progressive thinker," says Andy Guyader, Cal Poly's recruiting coordinator/wide receivers and slot backs coach, who is expected to join Ellerson at Army. "In terms of what he tells you on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (about other teams), it usually happens. It's like he has a crystal ball. Everything he does is so well thought-out."

Of course, Ellerson's experience with an option attack, a real live one, not the one the Black Knights tried to run this fall, attracted interest from West Point brass. But Ellerson made a name for himself as a defensive coaching star.

Before Cal Poly, Ellerson served as defensive coordinator at Arizona from 1997-2000. He installed the "Desert Swarm" defense, which was highly successful, featuring future NFL stars Tedy Bruschi and Chris McAllister. The scheme also helped Army: Ellerson helped Sutton install the aggressive package prior to Army's 10-2 run and a berth in the Independence Bowl in 1996.

"Rich Ellerson's pass-rushing scheme is the best in the nation," Niumatalolo says.

Adds former Cal Poly star linebacker Kyle Shotwell: "I've been in the NFL (on the Kansas City Chiefs' practice squad) for the last two years and I haven't seen anyone better than (Ellerson). He doesn't look at football like most football coaches. He's the most intelligent coach I've been around. When I listen to him talk football, I'm amazed."

X's and O's aside, Ellerson gets the most out of his players because he cares. According to Shotwell, Ellerson knew every Cal Poly player's major and some of their courses. Ellerson pulled him aside before the 2006 season and told him, because of a back injury, he should think of giving up the game he loves.

After all, Shotwell would have kids some day. Wouldn't he want to be able to hold and play with them? Shotwell ended up playing and was named the FCS defensive player of the year.

"I know it sounds like interview-speak, but coach Ellerson cares about you so much, it goes deeper than football," says Stephen Field, an FCS first-team Associated Press All-American offensive lineman at Cal Poly this year. "He cares about your success as a man and you know he's going to work his butt off for you. So you do the same for him."

Field and Shotwell say Ellerson is a perfect fit for West Point. He will understand Army players because, in many ways, they are like his Cal Poly charges. Cal Poly—the so-called MIT of the West—is a difficult academic institution with undersized players. The players most of the Division I factories passed on.

"Coach Ellerson gets the diamonds in the rough," Shotwell says. "He doesn't want the 6'5", 315-pound offensive lineman. He wants the 6'2, 275" (player) who can run up the field. He wants a blue-collar player, not someone who's been coddled and told how good they are their whole life. Coach Ellerson wants the player who is going to prove themselves against the big-time teams."

Ellerson, 56-34 (.622) at Cal Poly, broke into the business as a graduate assistant at Hawaii, where he played, in 1977. San Jose State coach Dick Tomey gave Ellerson his first job more than 30 years ago. The 22-year-old kid was respectful, but didn't shy away from a debate. He still doesn't. Even back then, Ellerson came up with imaginative ways to look at the game.

"Rich was the only guy who would argue with me in the room (at Hawaii)," says Tomey, whom Ellerson also served under at Arizona. "I liked that. He's so smart and easy to talk to, easy to get along with. I was always attracted to that. I re-hired him four times (on different staffs). I wouldn't do that with anyone else."

Ellerson has turned down assistant-coach offers from the NFL, Pac-10 and SEC over the years. However, he couldn't pass up West Point. When Ellerson accepted the Cal Poly job in 2000, one of the caveats was that he could opt out, without penalty, if he was ever offered the Army head-coaching position.

Now, Ellerson has his dream job.

And proud Army fans everywhere are hoping, like they all say, Ellerson is a genius. Or, at least, close. That Ellerson can lead Army back to respectability—finally.

jrodriguez