Wednesday, November 24, 2010

How to develop a football program: Boise State University

Looking at this College Football season and the BCS Rankings, one of my new favorite teams is only one or two slip ups aways from competing for a National Championship. I'm talking about Boise State.  Boise State has developed into one of the top college football programs, in what seems to be overnight. In an article on idahostatesman.com, Boise State athletic director Gene Bleymaier states "Look at these (commemorative) footballs of teams we were playing in the late '60s and early '70s" including such teams like Linfield, Westminster, Whitworth, Eastern Oregon, Hiram Scott and the College of Idaho. "Fast forward to 2011, and put BYU, TCU, Utah, Air Force on that same football.Boise State, come 2011, will be in the Mountain West Conference and will compete with the teams just mentioned. SO, the question is how do you go from competing against small NAIA schools to the current #4 college football program in America in about 15 years?

My belief is that with any program, as you can see in any information about Boise State, 4things are important to growth:
1. Finding quality talent (Players and Coaches
2. Playing the toughest opponents possible
3. Generating funds
4. Marketing your team, personnel and school.

These may sound like common tools or ideas, but clearly as you look college football, these are not the easiest things to gather. In order to be a successful program you have to find the balance between all 4 tools. Boise State has become successful because they have taken the time to market themselves to their community as well as the entire college football community, find quality coaching and player talent (Boise is 49-4 in the last 5 years), generate funds (football program budget has gone from approx. $3 million to $6 million) and they have played tougher opponents (eliminating their rivalry with Idaho and playing teams such as Virginia Tech this season).

These 4 things will help ANY college or high school football program grow from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the mountain.


Going on with your day, I leave you with the words of Lou Holtz, “Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

JP aka Coach Poindexter
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 24, 2010 at 12:18 PM

    Hey JP,

    I've been a Boise State fan since their days in the Big Sky (then called 1-AA). What they've done in a short amount of time is unbelievable. They certainly have put some good opponents on their schedule but they've had their share of "cupcakes" since moving to D-1 football, continuing to play a few Big Sky teams, MAC, and Conference USA as examples. I think Bleymaier has been masterful at engineering a schedule that makes Boise State shine - but now that they've been thrust into the championship discussion we can't keep putting Bowling Green, Toledo and Miami of Ohio on the schedule.

    We'll see what the future holds. Interesting times at Boise State indeed!

    Lastly, here's a YouTube video that does a great job of telling the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szb_kLNlSKM

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  2. Coach PoindexterNovember 24, 2010 at 9:34 PM

    Your completely right. Boise State, in order to get the respect of the country, has to play against the Pac-10 and Big 12 teams...that way they will earn some more credibility.

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