Football: From the NFL to the NCAA

When the Princeton community learned on Dec. 23 that the football team would have a new coach, the initial reactions were mostly positive. Players were excited to have a young, energetic leader in Bob Surace ’90, and fans saw the announcement as the potential dawn of a new era for the Tigers.

After three straight losing seasons, the last of which was particularly harrowing, there was no doubt the team needed a coaching change. But soon after Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 introduced Surace to the media, the hard work began. A new staff had to be assembled, recruits had to be contacted, and a new direction for the program had to be determined.

Questions about the team’s recruiting will be answered as the targets begin announcing their commitments, and those about the assistant coaching staff will gradually be resolved as new names surface, but concerns about the broader impacts of the transition linger.

The administration's stance

Before he could completely move his life back to Princeton, Surace was busy finishing the season with the Cincinnati Bengals, who lost to the New York Jets in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs last Saturday. Now that the Bengals’ season is over, he will fully take over Princeton’s program.

Sophomore kicker Patrick Jacob said he did not think the Bengals’ prolonged season would be a serious problem for the Tigers. “I don’t think it will have much of an effect other than on Coach Surace and the amount of sleep he gets,” he explained. “He’s a pretty busy man.”

When Roger Hughes, the previous head coach, was fired, Walters made it clear that Hughes would continue working in the football office, but that the new coach would be able to shape his staff as he pleased. As a result, the assistant coaches who finished the year with Hughes were unsure of their employment status, and the team has only announced one hiring, though speculation abounds on the internet. The one hire, Brown quarterbacks coach James Perry, will take over as offensive coordinator.

Yale head coach Tom Williams noted the similarity of Surace’s situation to his own last year. Then an assistant with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, Williams learned he would be Yale’s head coach in December 2008. But he did not take over until January, once the Jaguars’ season was over.

“It was difficult, and I’m sure Bob is going through the same thing, because we still had games to play before I [took over],” he explained. “I still had to prepare for a couple of NFL games and try to put together a staff.”

Still, the Jaguars did not make the playoffs that year and finished their season by the end of December. Surace’s Bengals made the playoffs, only bowing out last Saturday.

Noting that he had not spoken with Surace, Williams said the transition between the NFL and the Ivy League was not a big jump, though it might be easier for Surace than it was for him.

“Football is football, so from [the league] standpoint, it wasn’t the biggest transition,” he said. But Surace is coming back to his alma mater, so he has some familiarity with the surrounding area. For me, it was a completely new environment. I had never lived in the Northeast.”

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Leading the Tigers, 20 years later

Both Jacob and Mike Higgins '01, a former team captain and middle linebacker, said that having an alumnus — Surace will be celebrating at the 20th Reunion in May — coaching the team could be helpful for both the coaching transition and the team’s long-term prospects.

“The players will really respect a guy who has gone through what they’re going through and has been successful in doing what they’re trying to do,” explained Higgins, who experienced Princeton’s last coaching change while he was a player.

Jacob said this relationship would likely help the team connect with Surace quickly.

“I’m excited that he knows what we’re going through, not only from the coaching change standpoint, but being an Ivy League athlete and a Princeton football player,” he noted. “Not many understand the load [we carry,] but he’s experienced it.”

Surace said he thought the Tigers were especially equipped to handle the transition well.

“In some places, the change is a lot harder, but they’re such a mature group of kids that go to school at Princeton,” he noted.

In addition to his faith in the team at large, Surace said he had drawn inspiration from the story of senior running back Jordan Culbreath. Culbreath was sidelined with aplastic anemia this fall but made it back to Princeton to watch some games late in the season, including the Tigers’ homecoming win against Yale.

“Your heart goes out to what happened with Jordan,” he said. “I only get to watch one game on TV every year, but the Yale game was on YES [Network]. It was such an inspiration for me as a professional coach, for me to talk about when I went into the team meeting that night.”

Inspired and excited as he may be, though, Surace said he knows he has a long road ahead of him.

Hughes was fired the day after the Tigers finished their third straight 4-6 season. Hired in 2000, he compiled a 47-52 overall record that included an Ivy League championship in 2006 but was still the sixth-worst ever for a Princeton coach.

Hughes became coach after Steve Tosches was fired following 13 years at the program’s helm, in the only coaching change since Surace’s time on the squad.

“It was an exciting time,” Higgins explained. “The change was good for the program. Everybody was really excited about it. It gave us an opportunity to usher in a new era for the program.”

Higgins noted that during the transition period between Tosches and Hughes, the upperclassmen on the team, including prominent players like current San Diego Chargers offensive lineman Dennis Norman ’01, stepped up to support the underclassmen.

Current players noted that not much had changed in terms of the team’s dynamics during the current transition. Solidification of the upcoming year’s leadership structure, including captain selection, now tends to come to shape in the spring, star junior inside linebacker Steven Cody said before Surace was hired. Thus, little had changed without a head coach leading the way.

Upperclassmen also played an important role in the coaching transition Surace witnessed when he played, one that was made under quite different circumstances. Ron Rogerson led the team during Surace’s freshman year before suddenly dying of a heart attack in August 1987. Tosches, who led the team from 1987 to 1999, took over for Rogerson. Surace won the Ivy League championship his senior year under Tosches, going 22-18-1 in his four years at Princeton.

Still, though the transition between Rogerson and Tosches was of a starkly different nature than the current one, Surace is not a stranger to conventional coaching changes. In handling the current transition, Surace is drawing upon not just his own experience at Princeton, but also his experience from when he came to the Bengals under head coach Marvin Lewis in 2003 after the firing of Dick LeBeau.

Surace explained that when Lewis took over the Bengals, his first order of business was to establish that the team was not going to set limits on itself. Surace said he would follow suit at Princeton.

“We will continue to push each other as coaches and players,” he said. “My expectations are going to be sky-high because I know there’s going to be a talented group.”

This is the second article in a two-part series on the football team’s transition to a new coaching staff.