Bowling Green State University Athletics
Toledo Blade Feature on Gregg Brandon
April 11, 2003 | Football
April 11, 2003
When Gregg Brandon called his first practice as a head football coach, his biggest fear was that no one would show up. The next morning, when only 12 players did come out, Brandon called his father in a near state of panic.
"I said, 'Dad, I've only got 12 guys. What am I going to do?'" Brandon recalled. "My Dad said, 'Son, you only need 11 to play the game, so you ought to be able to get it done.'"
That was 25 years ago, at a tiny high school in western Colorado. Brandon has called another practice for tomorrow at Perry Stadium, and he is confident the numbers won't be a problem this time around.
When Bowling Green State University plays its spring game at noon, there will be 80-some players on hand, all hoping to make a lasting impression on the first-year head coach of the Falcons.
"Honestly, I can't wait," Brandon said. "I have anticipated this day and thought about it for a long time."
Brandon quickly moved on from that first high school job and spent stints as a college assistant at Weber State, Wyoming, Utah State, Northwestern and Colorado. He was the offensive coordinator for the Falcons the last two seasons, then was selected to take over the program following the departure of head coach Urban Meyer in December.
Brandon, who was born in Tucson, attended Air Force Academy High in Colorado Springs, where he played for Gary Barnett, the current head coach at Colorado. When Barnett was hired at Northwestern in 1992, he hired Brandon to coach receivers and to oversee recruiting.
"When I got the Northwestern job, it was only natural that Gregg was one of the first two people I hired," Barnett said. "He has a tremendous offensive mind and has done a great job coaching. He is calm and he rarely loses control of the situation. Gregg has been like a son to me, and I think the Bowling Green situation is just the right thing for him."
Barnett said he saw in Brandon the components a head coach must have in order to properly manage a program.
"He has the mind for it, and he has the temperament for it," Barnett said. "Gregg has been a part of turnarounds and a part of big programs. He also has a heart for young people. He just needs to be himself and trust his own decisions."
Brandon, who played defensive back and wide receiver at Mesa State and Northern Colorado, got his first college coaching job in 1981 at Weber State in Ogden, Utah, where he worked for current Alabama head coach Mike Price.
"That amount of time that I've known Gregg [22 years] gives you the full picture of the man," Price said. "He's a great coach, a real innovator on offense, a tenacious recruiter, and one of the hardest-working guys I've ever been around. Gregg has the football smarts, and he has all of the intangibles you need to be a solid head coach."
Meyer brought Brandon to Bowling Green in order to take advantage of his innovative offensive approach. The Falcons had trouble scoring at all before Brandon arrived, and last year they led the nation in that department for the first half of the season, with essentially the same players.
"Those were our guys so that's who we went with, and the biggest task was convincing them that we could win," Brandon said. "We showed them that with the offense we were running, we would put them in a position to win, and the rest the kids did."
Brandon said he learned offensive play-calling from some of the best coaches in the college ranks.
Brandon will work with offensive coordinator Greg Studrawa in calling plays, a job often left strictly to that assistant coach.
After Meyer led the Falcons to 17 wins in two seasons, bringing the program out of the doldrums born from six straight losing seasons, Brandon was clearly the players' choice to become the next head coach.
"We were united in our support for coach Brandon," senior quarterback Josh Harris said, "and we let everyone here know that. We felt like he had done a lot of good things with the offense, and we wanted to see that continue."
Brandon spread things out, put more receivers on the field, used more motion and shotgun formations, and put the scoreboard lights to the test.
"I got goose-bumps when the kids spoke out like that," Brandon said. "It was unbelievable, the support I had from this football team."
BG athletic director Paul Krebs did not take long before turning things over to Brandon, 47.
"Coach Brandon is a guy who is passionate, yet he's very composed. He handles himself with class," Krebs said. "We think he is the ideal coach to build on the success we've enjoyed the past couple of seasons."
Brandon had a major hand in that success. Under his guidance the Falcons finished third in the nation in scoring (40.8 points/game) last year, eighth in total offense (448.9 yards/game) and set 17 school records and seven MAC records.
"Seeing the offense grow to the point where we became a force offensively, that is very gratifying," Brandon said.
Brandon said he has been patient in his more than two decades as an assistant, waiting for his opportunity to come along and storing away bits and pieces of information for use when his day with the No. 1 headset finally arrived. He will continue to tinker with the offense while he oversees an entire program for the first time.
"A guy has to know who he is, and then you determine your role and make sure you are happy in that role," Brandon said. "There have been times when I knew who I was but I wasn't happy in that role. The ability to create and motivate, that's the juice I get from this. If you're not into that, then you should go do something else."
By the time Brandon's first game at Ellicott High in Colorado rolled around, he had 22 players on the squad. The next season, 35 showed up for the first practice.
But Brandon still remembers that basic assessment of coaching football he got from his father, who has since passed away.
"You still only need 11, and now my job is to see that we have the best 11 out on the field in every situation."
