WKU Football: There is No Other Way to Spin It, Sanford has been an Unmitigated Disaster For WKU
While watching WKU football’s streak of bowl eligibility end at seven seasons, I was left to wonder how WKU got from winning conference titles to the cellar of Conference USA in just 21 games?
While it wasn’t realistic to expect the program to not experience growing pains under a new coach (rebuilding happens), I never thought the hard-fought progress of the past decade would be erased so quickly. We’ve reached the point where excuses are out the window and the blame lays solely on Mike Sanford.
At the end of the day coaching matters. Fan anger is more than justified.
Here, we will do an airing of grievances against Sanford because the fan base needs to vent instead of listen to excuse after excuse.
Here are the definitive reasons why Sanford has failed thus far and why I believe it’s time to move on after the season.
Where the program was in December of 2016
One of the most frustrating things about this past year and a half is hearing the WKU administration act like the program was a dumpster fire when Mike Sanford took over. The program was coming off back-to-back Conference USA championships and six straight winning seasons. The winning culture was already established.
WKU coaches could sell success on the recruiting trail and didn’t have to rely on hope. Mike Sanford decided to take the head coaching job knowing that the bar was raised and expectations were there. Failing to capitalize on that momentum is squarely on him.
Hearing the coaches, administration and media beckon back to 2010 and the FBS transition is an insult to fan intelligence.
Deciding to drastically change program instead of easing into the transition
During Mike Sanford’s introductory press conference he stated the following:
It’s a tremendous challenge, and that’s why I think when you come into an opportunity like this job, you don’t want to come into it thinking, ‘We gotta keep the status quo going,’” Sanford said. “You gotta bring your own imprint on it… that’s what really believe that I’m tasked with doing.
Those words proved to foreshadow what was about to happen to the program.
While every coach should put their own imprint onto a program, most successful ones realize that imprint shouldn’t happen overnight, especially when following successful predecessors. Sanford’s radical transformation into making it his program has proved to turn off players and fans alike.
When you look at successful first-time coaches that take over winning programs (Lincoln Riley, Josh Heupel, Mike Norvell), they work with the personnel and players that they were given and adjusted their “system” to best maximize their potential to win. Sanford should have slowly implemented changes but instead decided to make it “his” program overnight with disastrous results.
Blowing a veteran-laden team last season
2018 was always going to be a rebuilding year, no way around it. But Mike Sanford blew a chance to build some goodwill by massively underachieving during his debut season in 2017.
WKU returned many established pieces from those championship teams including Mike White, Nacarius Fant, Joel Iyiegbuniwe, Joe Brown, Dennis Edwards, Derik Overstreet, and several other proven players. On top of that, there were underclassmen such as Lucky Jackson, Quinton Baker and D’Andre Ferby that has been productive in limited roles within the Jeff Brohm offense and were ready to take the leap to the next level.
Deon Yelder even emerged from special teams ace to become an NFL prospect. With that solid base of talent along with a very manageable schedule (Illinois and Vanderbilt as P5 buy games), most fans expected WKU to contend for another conference title and at the very worst at least continue the momentum and have an 8–4 type season.
From the beginning, illusions of keeping the Brohm era going were shattered quickly; a struggle with FCS Eastern Kentucky and a dud of a game at an Illinois team that won just two games all season in the campaign prior.
Sanford looked lost and the explosive offensive attack averaged just 25.5 points per game in the first six games of the season. Despite unconvincing results (the 15–14 win over winless UTEP being a glaring example), the Tops stood at 5–2 after an exciting 35–31 win over Old Dominion. The ball was in Mike Sanford’s court to prove doubters wrong and control the narrative in his debut season (Brohm had struggled early in his tenure as well but righted the ship in memorable fashion).
Unfortunately, what looked like the turning of the proverbial corner (up 28–20) quickly disintegrated in the fourth quarter against Florida Atlantic as they allowed 22 straight points and started a string of excruciating defeats.
Despite all of that, Sanford found a way to engineer an exciting win over MTSU and stood at 6–5, extending WKU’s bowl eligibility streak to seven seasons with a shot to end the year at, potentially, 8–5, the same record Brohm achieved in his debut season.
What followed next were two of the most disheartening losses since winning returned on the Hill. WKU twice traveled down to Florida (against FIU to close the year and the Cure Bowl against Georgia State) and failed to show up in either game, with the team quitting on their rookie coach and ending WKU’s streak of winning seasons at six.
There was no way to spin Mike Sanford’s debut year other than a disappointment and with a rebuilding year on the horizon, that lack of goodwill he could have earned has come back to haunt him.
Losing the first grad transfers in school history
One underlooked trend that has cost Sanford much needed upper-class experience was the loss of three grad transfer players (TJ McCollum, Dennis Edwards andJake Collins) in his first two years.
Prior to his arrival on the Hill, WKU had never lost a grad transfer to a Power 5 school. That trend ended almost immediately after he took over and has set a bad precedent for his tenure. Taggart, Petrino and Brohm all had convinced talented players from previous staffs to buy into their vision and stay on the Hill, helping enable their success that followed.
The grad transfer departures showed that he has trouble connecting with the successful core that was supposed to help him weather the transition from the Brohm era to his style.
Without McCollum, the 2017 defense succumbed to a lack of depth and faded down the stretch. Without Edwards and Collins in 2018, the offensive line had zero returning starters and the punting game has underachieved massively. These veterans could have helped Sanford on the margins instead they were the start of a terrible trend that has shown WKU now has to worry about their impact players being poached.
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses
Prior to his debut season, Mike Sanford said most of the right things, saying that he planned on building on what Brohm had built and even exceeding him by stating his goal was to not only make a New Year’s Six bowl, but win one.
Those illusions evaporated quickly and were followed up by excuses. After a loss to Illinois he blamed players for not showing up when they got in the game.
“It hasn’t been for lack of effort. It hasn’t been for poor attitude. It’s just been for who are the guys that respond best when the lights are on.”
Then he made excuses for players not buying into his system
We have to create culture where everybody — players, coaches, equipment staff, you name it — are accountable to each other. I believe that’s a culture that’s developing,” he said. “But I don’t think there’s an inherent lack of trust. I believe that this team is a family. I do think that moments like that, when the tempers and the disappointments are running high, you get to see some people’s true colors.
Even after a hard fought victory against MTSU, Sanford continued to make subtle excuses why his debut was so tough
This senior class, they’ve been through a lot. They’ve had a lot of success. They’ve won conference championships. They’ve won bowl games,” Sanford said. “But they’ve also had to deal with a lot of transition. Transition’s a difficult thing, it really is. It’s difficult when you play for four or five head coaches over the course of a five-year career.
Flash forward to his second season when the losing really started cranking up. Broadcast after broadcast, you have to hear announcers parrot Sanford’s talking points that this is the youngest team in FBS and how they’re close to turning a corner as a program without anything but close losses and now blowouts to show for it. Sanford has finally started blaming himself for his team not finishing games but after losing 12 of his last 14 games, the excuses have continued to fall on deaf ears within an angry and now apathetic fan base.
Slow, Plodding Style
To go from the high scoring ways of the Brohm era to struggling to score 20 points might be the most difficult thing to swallow for fans that had grown accustomed to entertaining football.
Under Sanford, WKU repeatedly settles for slow clock-eating drives. These methodical drives leave no margin for error as WKU repeatedly finds ways to score in the teens and 20’s, leaving them susceptible to one mistake (coaching or otherwise) costing them the game.
A hallmark of the Jeff Brohm era was large chunk plays that demoralized the defense and WKU quickly getting back to the line to keep them off balance. When WKU does move the ball, they slowly get back to the line of scrimmage allowing the opposing defense to adjust and limiting their chance for explosive plays.
The numbers back up this assumption: WKU is ranked 116th in total offense and 127th in explosiveness, according to S&P+. For a coach that came to WKU with a quality offensive pedigree, Sanford’s offensives have been downright offensive since taking over. The dramatic shift from Brohm ball to Sanford ball has proven to be too much of a leap for the players to handle and the results on the field mirror that uneasy transition. Without a breakout game that has shown everything can go right offensively, this writer has a hard time thinking that Sanford ball can be successful in Conference USA.
Poor Red Zone Execution
WKU has shown they can move the ball between the 20’s during Sanford’s tenure but when it comes to finishing drives they’ve massively underachieved.
Currently, WKU ranks 118th in Red Zone offense, scoring on just 75% of their opportunities. There are many examples where Sanford’s knack for not closing out drives has cost himself victories. The 2nd-and-1 at the Louisville 1 yard line is the most glaring example this season. With a shot of going up by 15 points in the second half, WKU not only lost yards but missed the ensuing field goal attempt that would have put WKU up 11 points.
The Tops would go on to lose the game to the now hapless Cardinals.
Just this weekend against FIU, WKU ventured into the red zone three times with only three points to show for it.
Playcalling and execution matter the most in these situations and they are a direct reflection of the coaching staff. This is just another area where Sanford deserves the blame for massive underachievement.
Second-half Malaise
One area where we can actually give Mike Sanford some credit is that his teams usually are competitive to start the game; WKU hasn’t been blown out in the first half of any games during his tenure. That, however, just highlights how bad his teams have been coming out of the locker room. WKU is just 5–5 when leading at the half under Sanford and has been outscored 157–57 in the third quarter of his 21 game tenure.
Sanford hasn’t learned how to finish games as a coach and the four three-point defeats this season just show that it’s not all bad luck when it keeps happening over and over again. Good coaches improve over time and make progress as they gain experience. Unfortunately for Sanford the lack of second-half results just show how far he has to go.
Losing, losing and more losing
At the end of the day, being a football coach is about winning games. Like I stated above, most fans would have accepted a rebuild type season where Sanford was fighting for a 5–7 win season. Instead, that’s what fans got in his debut and this year against a mediocre schedule that ranks 105th according to S&P+ in college football, he has fallen off a cliff.
It’s one thing to be 3–5 or 4–4 at this point it’s a whole different ball of wax when your season is all but over on October 27. The numbers are staggering; he has 33.3% winning percentage since he took over and now has a 14.28% winning percentage over his last 14 games (since WKU stood at 5–2 in 2017).
He has regressed at a time when most successful coaches start figuring out and show on the field results. If WKU was playing a murders row of a schedule then we could understand struggles but instead, we’re now in the cellar of Conference USA with losses to Maine, Charlotte, Old Dominion and the worst Louisville team in two decades.
Turning a championship program to a doormat in less than two seasons is inexcusable and now the team is staring a two-win season in the face (if they can beat a hapless UTEP squad that at least is improving). Even the most ardent Sanford apologists know that the lack of wins make it almost impossible to defend him because he’s let the program slip so far in such little time.
No Signature Wins
With all of the losing, Mike Sanford needs something to fall back on to show fans that bigger things are coming and that they’ll be rewarded for patience.
Unfortunately, he has blown almost every chance for a signature win to hang his hat on. The record of the opponents for his seven wins has been a paltry 21–59 (35.59% winning percentage). He also has blown chances against mediocre Power 5 teams (Illinois, Vanderbilt and Louisville) that could have built up equity among the fan base. When your best win by a mile was a 7–6 Middle Tennessee team playing without their top playmaker (Richie James), you’ve proven that you not only can’t win consistently but if you ever do you’re going to have a hard team beating good teams. This trend is yet another sign that things aren’t getting better anytime soon under Sanford.
Zero on-field progress
At the end of the day, we should evaluate Mike Sanford through the prism of whether or not he’ll be able to get WKU back to championship levels that were established by his predecessors.
From game 1 to game 21, there have been zero signs of progress that show that bigger things are possible in the future. A lot has been said about his predecessor's slow start to their tenures but in every case, they showed there were days when everything clicked their “system” could work.
Taggart despite taking over a winless program exploded for a 54–21 win over Louisiana Lafayette in his debut season. Petrino opened his first game by beating Kentucky and Brohm put on offensive clinics in each of his first seven games (despite being just 3–4) that showed proof that big things were possible even if there was an adjustment period.
Sanford has had zero of those moments since taking over and only has the moral victories of close losses to hang his hat on. We haven’t seen one game where his Boise South ball control system worked like it was supposed to.
WKU struggles to run the ball with authority and drives continue to peter out in the red zone. The defense, which was supposed to be a strength, continues to wear down as the game goes on.
Where has the growth come? When will the light come on? Where is that break out performance to show fans proof that big things are possible?
21 games is enough of a sample size to ask these questions. Little things like team discipline, questionable play calls and special teams play that can be improved with some ease continue to repeatedly ruin what little improvement the team has shown. With WKU in the middle of their toughest stretch of the season (FIU, MTSU, FAU, UTEP and Louisiana Tech) fans have zero faith that things will improve and the season from hell will continue without anything positively being built for the future.
At the end of the season, it’s Time to cut our losses
Sometimes the writing is just on the wall. Sometimes you just know that a coach isn’t going to work out. WKU can learn from some of its previous lame duck coaches (David Elson, Ken McDonald) and not waste another season of key development and fan interest.
By turning of the page, Todd Stewart can get the program back on track. There are many examples of the immediate impact a new coach can make on a program (Dan Mullen, Jeff Brohm, Butch Davis). What I can’t find is a recent example of a coach that bottomed out a successful program in year two and rebounded enough to take them back to championship glory.
The buyout is a major issue (anywhere between $900,000 to $1.2 million, based on where you read it) but with the rate the program is going WKU cannot afford to not make a move. The loss in fan interest, ticket sales and concession sales should facilitate a cutting of the losses once the season ends against Louisiana Tech.
WKU is still an attractive job that transformed two unknown coaches (Taggart & Brohm) to some of the hottest names in the coaching industry and helped rehab another coach (Petrino) back to the Power 5.
Hire the right coach and 2018 was just a blimp in the radar. Keeping the status quo and what could be a short-term lull could turn into a major slump. As successful as WKU has been this decade, it cannot afford to let that become a reality. Fair or not, results matter and because of the rapid decline in wins and no tangible improvement on the field it is time for Sanford to go.
