Wednesday, January 2, 2008
There isn’t a set blueprint building and maintaining a football program, but if there were, Frank Beamer would be its author. The Virginia Tech head coach has led his Hokies to 15 consecutive bowl games, four straight double-digit win seasons and a 167-84-2 record during his 21 seasons at the helm.
Standing across the field from Beamer Thursday night will be Kansas coach Mark Mangino, a less seasoned coach who has just recently started to taste hints of the success Beamer has enjoyed for the past two decades. Addressing the media at a press conference Wednesday morning, Mangino said he held Beamer and his Virginia Tech coaching staff in high esteem. More surprising was the respect Beamer gave Mangino during his visit with the media.
“He's a solid coach,” Beamer said of Mangino. “You look at their football team and they're good offensively, they're good defensively, they're good in the kicking game - they're very disciplined, they play hard.”
Beamer’s description of the 2007 Jayhawks brings to mind Hokie squads of recent years. Throughout Virginia Tech’s 15-year run of postseason berths, Beamer’s teams have been consistently strong on defense and dangerous on special teams. Blocked punts, big hits and hounding defensive pressure - all hallmarks of this season’s Kansas team - have been regular players during the Hokies’ dominant streak.
“There are a lot of parallels between how (Virginia) Tech started out and how we're starting out,” Mangino said. “You can't always get the best players, so you look for some kids who have some intangibles, work ethic: Toughness, smarts, that understand the value of hard work.”
“Hard work” is a phrase that comes up frequently when Beamer speaks and perhaps even more often when Mangino discusses his team. His first Kansas team struggled to a 2-10 mark in 2002, improved to 6-7 the next year, and managed to ascend to the top of the college football universe this season, earning a trip to the Orange Bowl.
In 1987, Beamer inherited a successful team but struggled through a rough 2-9 campaign. He didn’t find success early on, compiling a 24-40-1 record in his first six seasons. But Virginia Tech went 9-3 in 1993 and never looked back, winning 10 or more games in nine of the next 14 seasons. Just as Beamer’s eventual ascension to the upper echelon of coaching was spurred by the introduction of defensive coordinator Bud Foster in 1995, Kansas’ sudden spurt of victories has coincided with the addition of offensive coordinator Ed Warinner. Beamer took seven seasons to turn his team into a consistent winner. It has taken Mangino six years to reach a BCS bowl – and if his words offer any indication, Kansas’ next few seasons could mirror those of Virginia Tech.
“I spent most of my career in winning programs,” Mangino said. “When I first arrived at Kansas, it was disappointing - there were days that I was frustrated and said this ought to be better – because the University of Kansas deserves better than this in their football program.
“We got to a point where we realized, hey, you know, here's what you can do. You can pout and complain about it or you can roll up your sleeves and say, listen, I'll prove everybody wrong. And we came to a fork in the road. I decided we were going to take the one where we were going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to get it done.”
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