View from the East Thursday, August 1, 2013 By Al Myatt

Holtz back on C-USA's turf

By Al Myatt
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After winning two Conference USA football championships at East Carolina, Skip Holtz left the Pirates for the perks of Big East membership at South Florida.

Following seasons of 8-5, 5-7 and 3-9, the Bulls dismissed Holtz, but he quickly landed the head coaching job at Louisiana Tech, which has a history of hiring the sons of noteworthy coaches.

The Bulldogs' previous three coaches included Jack Bicknell, Jr., who played for his dad at Boston College, Derek Dooley, the son of former Georgia coach Vince Dooley, and Sonny Dykes, whose dad, Spike, directed Texas Tech from 1986 to 1999.

Holtz's father, Lou, of course, guided Notre Dame to its last national championship in 1988 among his many successful coaching stops.

The younger Bicknell, who snapped to Doug Flutie for the famous Hail Mary to Gerard Phelan to give BC a 47-45 win at Miami in 1984, is now offensive line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers. After a stint at Tennessee, Dooley coaches wide receivers coach for the Dallas Cowboys, where he works with former Pirate star Dwayne Harris. Dykes left the Bulldogs after the 2012 season to coach California.

That opened the door for Holtz to continue Louisiana Tech's legacy of coaches with well-known coaching dads.

"I'm sure as a school they've probably looked at it and said 'You know what? There are coaches who have grown up around this game their whole life,' " Holtz said at the Conference USA football media gathering at the Dallas-Fort Worth Marriott North last week. " 'This has been a way of life for them.' They've had success with it and they've hung with it.

"I'm excited that they have."

Holtz has warmed to the task of reloading the Bulldogs rather than kicking back with his $2.5 million buyout from USF over the next five years.

He acknowledges that being the son of a famous coach can have its advantages.

"The blessings are a lot of the opportunities that we have growing up around this great game, having somebody close to us that can give us the 30,000-foot view that has the experience like my father does or like Coach Dooley did or Coach Dykes did," Holtz said. "I think all of those are huge advantages. Probably the negative is expectations. When you get into a profession, especially that your father is in, sometime it's hard to get out of that shadow.

"I think if you ask every one of us, we're not trying to be the next Coach Dooley or Coach Dykes or Coach Holtz as much as we're trying to be the best coaches that we can all be."

Holtz is transitioning from a BCS program to one of the so-called have-nots in college football.

"We've talked about in some ways the finances with some conferences are getting farther and farther away from each other but I think on the field it's getting closer and closer from a competitive standpoint," Holtz said. "That's why I think when you look at a school like when we were at East Carolina and we had some of the success against a Virginia Tech or North Carolina or N.C. State, when you look at Louisiana Tech and some of their wins, you know how they played (Texas) A&M down to the wire. ESPN has been playing it over and over and over. ... But when you look at the wins against Illinois and the wins against Ole Miss and some of the wins that we've had in our program, I think the play on the field is getting closer and closer.

"I don't think there's that big of a difference between coaching at an East Carolina or coaching at a Louisiana Tech or one of the holier of the holy places. I think there are some challenges. Every job has its points. But I think every coach, no matter where you are, you've got to find a way to highlight your strengths and hide your weaknesses. That's the biggest challenge that we have. I don't care whether you're in Ruston, Louisiana, Greenville, North Carolina, Storrs, Connecticut or in South Bend. There's warts in every job that you have to be able to overcome to be able to win."

The life of a coach's son can involve a significant degree or travel.

"I kind of moved around all over but Fayetteville (Arkansas) was where I went to high school," Holtz said. "The hard part for me is once I left to go to college in South Bend, my family moved from (Fayetteville). I don't have a lot of family in Fayetteville to say that that would be home. That's not where we went back for Christmas but it's definitely where I grew up.

"Now that I live in Ruston, a lot of people have tried to make a big deal of moving from Tampa to Ruston, and kind of the culture shock that you go in from the big city like that to Ruston, but I grew up in a town like Ruston. Fayetteville was a town of 25,000 people when I was there. The school was about 14- or 15-thousand. It's a small town. It's a family atmosphere. I think you can't talk about Ruston without talking about Louisiana Tech. The two are kind of intertwined. ... It's a small town but it's got everything you need to raise a family and have the opportunity to have a great experience in college."

The kind of experience the Bulldogs have on the gridiron in 2013 will depend on how effectively the Bulldogs can deal with the loss of 31 seniors from a team that went 9-3 overall and 4-2 in the Western Athletic Conference.

When Holtz came to ECU after the 2004 season, he took over a team that had gone 2-9 overall and 2-6 in Conference USA, but one of the advantages of coaching the Pirates was solid leadership.

"There was a lot more stability at East Carolina when I went there with Chancellor (Steve) Ballard being in place and Terry Holland (athletic director) being there and being able to start right from January as we were moving forward," he said in comparing his start at ECU with his current status. "With this situation (at Louisiana Tech), there's been a lot of change, even since I've been there. A new president took over in July. A new athletic director was just hired here a week ago.

"It's probably a different first six months I've had here than I had there, but I'm excited about the prospects and the future at Louisiana Tech. I'm excited about a lot of the things that are in place. The excitement of stepping into Conference USA right now for us, a team that has really longed for some of these geographical rivalries that are being put in place for us — I think it's an exciting time right now."

The Holtz era will begin on Aug. 31 with a game at N.C. State, home to the Holtz family from 1972 to 1975 when Lou was coaching the Wolfpack.

"Some great memories with the Buckey (Dave and Don) boys, Stan Fritts, Roland Hooks, Ted Brown and so many of those guys that were on those N.C. State teams," Skip said. "Having walked back into that stadium, taken two different teams at East Carolina over there to N.C. State to play, it's a lot different than when I wore my No. 10 Willie Burden jersey and used to run up and down that hill during game days, because that hill has disappeared.

"I have some great memories from that time and having the opportunity to grow up there. It'll be an emotional game for me. It'll be a time to look back to when I was there, but for our players, they don't have anything to do with that."

Holtz also has memories of ECU, which include the C-USA championships in 2008 and 2009.

"Great people, great people," Holtz said in retrospect. "Friendships that will last me a lifetime. People that I still stay in touch with. I stay in touch with the Crabtrees (Eddie, Nick and Eddie Sr.). The Steeles. Mike and Drew Steele were a big part of our lives when we were there. So many people. A lot of great memories. They're passionate about their football there in Eastern North Carolina. I'm excited to see a lot of the positive steps that they've taken, a lot of the facility improvements and a lot of the things that have been done.

"I still haven't had the opportunity to see the stadium expansion there."

ECU enclosed the East end of the stadium after Holtz departed, a logical step in response to the success the Pirates experienced under his leadership.

Louisiana Tech's first season in C-USA will be ECU's last in the league. The Pirates will join the American Athletic Conference in 2014. The two programs are in separate divisions in C-USA in 2013 and aren't scheduled to meet during the regular season. They could face off in the C-USA championship game on Dec. 7. If such a matchup were to be played in Greenville, then Holtz could see the improvements at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in person. The possibility has already occurred to the former ECU coach.

"That's what I was thinking," he said with a laugh.

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PAGE UPDATED 08/01/13 09:42 PM.