Garin Higgins calls Matt Coursen a hidden gem.
Coursen’s hiding place was just 32 miles up I-35 from Emporia in Waverly, where they play 8-man football and rarely get a college coach stopping through. When Higgins was hired on Dec. 15, 2006, he was out on the road the next day and the first stop was the local high schools.
Even though Higgins played at Emporia State from 1987 to 1990, he had spent most of his coaching career in Oklahoma, and he knew to win at Emporia State, he needed to recruit the state of Kansas and find the Matt Coursens that no one else had discovered yet. More than anything, Higgins looked at his program and saw a need for more talent — no matter the shape or size or birthplace.
Coursen was one of the four players who took the first recruiting visit to Emporia on a snowy weekend just weeks after Higgins returned to his alma mater.
“They didn’t even know where the footballs were yet,” Coursen said. “We were playing catch with kicker’s balls. Zach Rampy came up the same time I did and he was throwing me flat, old Wilson kicker balls, because they hadn’t even gotten into their offices or anything hardly.”
The lack of glitz and glory didn’t sour Coursen’s visit. Higgins and his staff told Coursen and the other three players that weekend about their plan to change the culture at Emporia State. Higgins wrote in a book his plan to turn the program around. He was going to bring discipline, avoid the quick fix and recruit to his team’s needs.
“Coach Higgins’ big thing to us was I’m going love you hard and I’m going to coach you hard,” Coursen said. “That really hit home to my parents and me.”
The scout team
Fast-forward eight months and it’s August. Higgins and his staff had scrambled to put together their first class. Higgins knew he was not going to win a lot in his first season whether the freshmen contributed or not, so he decided to redshirt them all. Only Coursen was going to play and then he got mono and decided to also sit out.
“It gives us a chance to stay together,” Rampy said. “There’s not going to be anyone in our class that’s going to be ahead of us. We all came in together. We’re all going to leave together. That’s a good thing for unity and just making our class closer.”
The freshmen were not going to make a difference on Saturdays, but the staff decided to use them to make a difference on the practice field. They wanted to send a message that things were changing.
“When we came out, coach (Spence) Nowinski was over there, K.G. (Ken Gordon) was over there saying come out and try to kick their (butt) every day,” redshirt freshman defensive end Matt Rosenhamer said. “The older guys — I don’t know how their program was a couple years ago — but obviously they were kind of toned down a little bit. And then when we came out there and pushed it to the limit, they would be like, ‘come on guys. Don’t go so hard. This is just scout team,’ and we’d get talking a little bit and some shoves here and there.”
The talking never stopped, as practices became as competitive as game days.
The freshmen took pride in forming what they believed was the best scout team in the conference.
“All-Star scout team,” redshirt freshman running back Adrian Abner says with a big smile on his face.
Some of the veterans weren’t smiling. But those veterans, who had their positions handed to them in 2007 and played with a sense of entitlement, are now either out of the program or on the bench.
“The best players are going to play regardless of their age,” recruiting coordinator/tight ends coach Sean Clowers said. “Last year it wasn’t the case, but this year and from here on out, the best kids are going to play, period.”
When spring ball began, the enthusiasm and excitement around the program had taken a noticeable turn thanks to the competition that came from the freshmen.
“Everyone (was) coming out and going 100 miles an hour faster than we were last fall, and I think that’s a big reason why a whole bunch of young guys are going to be playing this year,” Rosenhamer said. “We got out this spring and a lot of us young guys had a chance to be No. 1s and be in the starting spot and we had to prove ourselves. I think it definitely changed from last year in the tempo of us practicing harder, more competitive against each other.”
Don’t want a quick fix
Higgins has a plan to turn the Emporia State football program around. He’s talked to other coaches who have turned other programs around, and they all tell him the same thing: Stick to your plan.
“The tough thing about society these days is it’s an impatient society,” Higgins said. “I think if people are just patient and understand that we do have a plan. It’s not like we’re just going about our business coaching football. There’s a plan in place of what we want to do and I think that you’ve got to believe we’re going to get this thing turned around and we’ve got to believe it as coaches, and we do.”
Part of Higgins’ plan included redshirting last year’s freshman class. Instead of opting for instant gratification, Higgins and his staff have recruited mostly high school players and only a limited number of junior college players.
“For me, if I’m going to recruit a junior college kid, I’m going to recruit a junior college kid that is going to come in and play,” Higgins said. “I don’t want to recruit a junior college kid who’s going to come in and sit the bench. and then at the same time our plan is we need to lay a foundation here and develop kids throughout the program that understand this culture.
“If you bring in 16 junior college kids, they don’t understand that culture what you’re trying to do. And you’re always replenishing. You’re always replenishing. This way I don’t think you have to replenish as much. This year it’s easier than it was last year. Next year it will be even easier. You still want to bring in junior college kids but they need to be your real needs.”
In two recruiting seasons, Higgins’ staff has signed 60 high school players to scholarships. The incoming class includes 39 players and is much deeper than the first class ESU coaches scrambled to put together.
Emporia State recruits on a tank-of-gas approach, and thus the coaches recruit players from Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.
“In this area of the United States, there’s more football players than you could possibly ask for,” Clowers said.
Clowers said that starting in June each coach on the staff makes 20 to 25 phone calls a night — six days a week — to recruits. Then there’s also e-mails, making sure they are in constant contact with players and building relationships.
“I’d say the coaches, they made me feel like a friend,” Abner said. “I felt like I could talk to them and tell them anything like a friend. I wanted to go somewhere where I was comfortable, so I came here.”
For Clowers, who is the team’s recruiting coordinator, he finds Emporia State to be an easy sell.
“I think the difference between Emporia State and the city of Emporia, maybe versus some other institutions, is that this is a phenomenal Division II community and school,” Clowers said. “You’ve got your business school, which is in the top third in the entire country. You’ve got your teacher’s education school, which is one of five model programs. Some people say sell or pitch, I don’t really think of it as a sell or pitch. You just lay out the facts and let the kids or their families decide and I think Emporia State is a great school to do that with.”
The biggest challenge for the Hornets and all D-II schools is distributing scholarships. Division I schools have 85 scholarships, but D-II schools can only use the equivalency of 36 scholarships. Coaches have to determine how much a recruit is worth. Higgins jokes that it would have been a smart choice to major in accounting when he was in school.
Instead of focusing on money, the Hornets try to find players, like Coursen, who want to be part of turning a program around.
“Right now for us it’s not about scholarships, it’s not about money, because everyone’s going to offer them scholarships and you get in bidding wars with people,” Clowers said. “So what you would like to do is go in there and establish a relationship, let them know where you stand and coaches get to know where the kids and the families are, where they come from and kind of what they represent. If it’s a good fit, then it’s an easy thing to do.”
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