JONESBORO -- Arkansas State will open practice at 9 a.m. today with the same head coach it had the previous season for the first time in five years.
Perhaps even more important is that every coach who spent last season assisting Coach Blake Anderson is back for another round, too.
Ark. State schedule
DATE OPPONENT TIME
Sept. 5 at Southern Cal 10 p.m.
Sept. 12 Missouri 6 p.m.
Sept. 19 Missouri State 6 p.m.
Sept. 26 at Toledo TBA
Oct. 3 Idaho* TBA
Oct. 13 at South Alabama* 7 p.m.
Oct. 20 Louisiana-Lafayette* 7 p.m.
Oct. 31 Georgia State* TBA
Nov. 5 at Appalachian St.* 6:30 p.m.
Nov. 14 at Louisiana-Monroe* 2 p.m.
Nov. 28 at New Mexico State* TBA
Dec. 5 Texas State TBA
*Sun Belt Conference game
Anderson officially begins his follow-up to a 7-6 debut season today with the first of 14 fall workouts leading up to the Sept. 5 season opener at Southern California. ASU will try to figure out over the next four weeks how good an offense that returns 10 starters can be while also trying to answer questions about special teams and in the secondary.
What Anderson doesn't have to spend time on is introducing his players to himself, assistant coaches and their schemes. ASU is one of only 23 FBS programs that will return its full coaching staff from last season, according to coachingsearch.com.
That means, for once, the program known for having five head coaches in five years is the picture of stability.
"I think it really meant a lot to the kids that these guys chose to be with them," Anderson said. "A lot of what we do in this sport, in this particular game, is about trust. That was a big thing you could give to a group, that we're really committed to what we're doing."
Anderson could have spent part of the offseason looking for new assistants. Anderson said his assistant coaches had offers to go elsewhere, but none of them did.
Cornerbacks coach Trooper Taylor said Monday that he had a chance to go to programs that some consider bigger jobs but chose to stay.
"This is such a volatile business," said Taylor, who has coached at four schools since 2007. "Anytime you can put roots down, it makes it even more fun. That's why we like being around here, because it's fun, and Blake makes it that way."
Taylor was one of seven ASU assistants who received raises in the offseason, but he said that wasn't why he stayed.
He said he stayed because of his son, sophomore cornerback Blaise Taylor, and the unity of the staff. He illustrated that point with a story about going last winter to watch his daughter play basketball for Jonesboro High School. Also in the gym watching were Anderson, defensive coordinator Joe Cauthen, safeties coach Allen Johnson and defensive line coach Brian Early.
"I didn't even know they knew she was playing," Taylor said.
Offensive coordinator Walt Bell could have stayed at North Carolina when Anderson was hired as ASU's coach, but instead Bell chose to come to ASU to call plays for the first time in his career.
Bell said he heard of other opportunities for other coaches over the winter, but he didn't spend much time wondering if he would lose any of them.
"We believe in our head football coach," Bell said. "We just think we have a really special opportunity to build something really neat here. Something really crazy would have to happen for us to blow out of here."
Players certainly have enjoyed the change.
"It's easier for us to go out and just play now, not go out there and impress a guy and show them what I can do," quarterback Fredi Knighten said. "Now we know what to do, and now we can have fun with it."
Cauthen recalled last season, when he said Anderson would tell some of his coaches to head home and come back the next day.
"He makes our quality of life so much better than any place I've ever worked," the defensive coordinator said. "We get wrapped up in this thing. As a football coach, if you're really into it, it's hard to not let it become who you are instead of what you do.
"Blake really tries to make sure that this is what we do and not who we are."
Anderson, who cited burnout when he quit as offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee in 2002, said Monday that he took all of his staff returning as validation of his effort to create such an atmosphere, one that was cultivated from taking the good and the bad from each job he's had.
"It's something that I really put a lot of thought into," Anderson said. "I'd like to think it paid dividends at that time of year where guys had to make choices and they chose to stay because they liked the environment.
"It means a lot to me."
Sports on 08/06/2015