The bright, boisterous, almost fiery voice of University of Akron football coach Terry Bowden fills the suite of offices in the Stile Athletics Field House.
It’s recruiting day — his first at UA. And the man charged with resurrecting a comatose football program bubbles over with enthusiasm.
If he’s worried, it doesn’t show. Ditto if he’s disappointed. If some coaches present an even-keeled steady hand by projecting an aura of calm, Bowden does so with that enthusiasm and punctuating some of his speech with his trademark “dadgum.”
There’s reason for the bubbliness, the smile and the “dadgums.” Bowden and his coaching staff made it through their first recruiting class, adding 21 recruits to the Zips’ roster.
Counting from the time UA announced Bowden’s hiring Dec. 22 to Wednesday afternoon, they had 41 days to put together a recruiting class. But for anyone who wants to be realistic, that process really didn’t begin until Bowden announced his coaching staff, which wasn’t until early January.
Which means they had to accomplish in three weeks what is an almost year-round process for established NCAA coaching staffs.
Time is no friend
“You couldn’t do it this way year-to-year and be successful at all,” Bowden said in the midst of his busy day Wednesday, which included monitoring national letters of intent that came out of the football office’s fax machine until midday. “In 2½ to three weeks, you can’t have enough background information to know everything you need to know about a young man you’re going to invest four years of a college education, your career and the success of your program.”
Yet, for the student-athletes who signed with the Zips, Bowden and his staff found just enough to warrant inclusion on their list.
“We found all that out about these guys in a positive way,” Bowden said. “I think we found guys able to play at the level of football we need to play. If someone was a little short of that, they had the academics, the drive, the hard-nosed toughness.”
Toughness needed
If the players possessed hard-nosed toughness, as Bowden calls it, the coaches certainly needed some of that quality, as well.
Defensive coordinator Chuck Amato, who has spent more than 30 years in the profession, understands all too well. When he accepted the head coaching position at North Carolina State, he had two weeks to recruit his first class.
“Too little, too late” is the way Amato and Bowden described the situation the coaching staff faced as they set their eyes upon potential Zips. It’s akin to staring at a fourth-and-25, behind by 14, with two minutes left in the game and no timeouts.
Recruiting is as much about relationships as it is anything else. Those often begin as soon as a player’s sophomore year in high school and no later than when they are a junior.
“The most frustrating thing was no matter what we could have done, we were too late to even get visits out of people who were committed to other people,” Bowden said.
The coach even went as far as asking some recruits to pop in for hours as opposed to a normal three-day visit while ending a trip elsewhere.
Other realities
Then there are other teams to contend with in Ohio — one to the northwest and the other just up Interstate 76.
Toledo has enjoyed consistent success in recent years, and Kent State looks to be building something similar under the direction of second-year coach Darrell Hazell.
“Toledo hasn’t been good for no reason at all. I think no one has done a better job in Northeast Ohio than Toledo over the years … they have established themselves,” Bowden said.
“We could not come in overnight and in three weeks throw anything around that would tear down the years of good work that they have done.”
And Kent State?
“Kent State, they’re obviously heading in the right direction, they’re not backing off,” he said.
You won’t hear Bowden or Amato express disappointment about this recruiting class. There is serious potential, especially from the players recruited from Florida. Amato and Todd Stroud, defensive line coach, can take credit for raiding the sunshine state and grabbing six players.
“We lucked out,” Amato said. “There are some extenuating circumstances that allowed these kids to be available. In some instance with me, I got phone calls from coaches that I knew down there. They said, ‘Chuck you have to come see this kid.’ ”
Bowden credits the strong ties of Amato and Stroud in Florida — Amato coached at Florida State and Stroud previously recruited the area.
Looking forward
They don’t plan on needing luck next year. Given Bowden’s record of success, name recognition and that of staff members such as Amato, it would be difficult to see how they would.
“I would be very disappointed if we couldn’t go out and work hard and get our equal share in this state of players that might otherwise go to other MAC schools or out of state,” Bowden said. “That’s what I would be shocked if we can’t do. We’re going to fight to be the school that’s No. 1 behind Ohio State.”
George M. Thomas can be reached at gmthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Zips blog at http://zips.ohio.com. Follow the Zips on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/GeorgeThomasABJ and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sports.abj.
