LOGAN, Utah – Mike Sanford has the DNA to be a coach. The former quarterback grew up around football as his father, Mike Sanford Sr., has more than 40 years of coaching experience under his belt.
Sanford, who was officially announced as the Aggies' offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach on Dec. 31, is heading into his third month on the job. Sanford brings 14 years of college coaching experience with him to Utah State, including two years as a head coach at Western Kentucky and three more seasons as an offensive coordinator at both Notre Dame and Boise State. In all, Sanford has coached in five New Year's bowl games and has been a part of three conference championship teams.
Following one of the team's practices earlier this week, we caught up with Sanford for a Q&A.
Q: What have your first few months on the job been like, and what has the transition been like?
Sanford: "It's been a really smooth transition, outside of moving the family and small children across the country. In terms of players and the coaching staff, it's been seamless. We have a great group of players and that's where it all starts and the priority that (head coach) Gary Andersen puts on. The relationships and the fact that we're here for them to teach and demand, but also be here for their development in every way. They have been really receptive to all the new coaches. I've really enjoyed the quarterback group and know them well, getting to know their backgrounds, getting them around my family, and getting them at the house has been awesome. It's almost like a year's worth of relationship-building has been into about a couple of months."
Q: What were the reasons behind you deciding to come to Utah State?
Sanford: "When everything happened after last season that did happen, I wanted to have two boxes checked. First, if I had that opportunity to do so, I wanted to be around a great head coach that is in it for the right reasons and I had the opportunity to be in alignment with. The fact that it's all about the student-athletes, the players, and family in that environment, that box has been checked bigger than I could have ever imagined. The fact that my father has known Coach Andersen for almost two decades dating back to the Utah days when they were on the same staff together, and then my dad being here in 2012, I just knew what Coach A was all about. I've been able to stay in touch with him a little bit over the course of the last 10 years. Everything that I had thought and hoped it would be working for Coach Andersen has been met with an exclamation point, after the fact. Part two, in all reality, I would have wanted the opportunity to get back out in the western part of the United States, kind of where my recruiting familiarity has been. I spent a majority of my career between Stanford, Boise State, UNLV and now Utah State. This whole Mountain West/Pac-12 niche is something that I have a great comfort level with. Just to have that opportunity to not only be in the Mountain West, but to be at a program that should and will continue to contend for a Mountain West championship every single year here at Utah State, it has been a dream come true."
Q: What got you into coaching and why do you enjoy it so much?
Sanford: "I grew up around my dad doing it the right way. What he has always been about is developing relationships with the players and coaches. That's the thing I like the most about it and I saw that firsthand. I saw my dad have an impact on different players and different backgrounds from all over the country. It's something that I wanted to be a part of. When I was playing at Boise State, I had a chance to be around one of the best coaches in all of football in Chris Petersen. He was my position coach and I got to see a different way of doing it than what I had grown up around. The common ground was the fact that both my dad and Coach P really do care about the people and the development of the people. After I got done playing, I knew that there was no question that I wanted to do what my dad had been doing for the last 25 years."
Q: What was it like growing up with a dad who was a college football coach?
Sanford: "It was awesome. I embraced every bit of it. Any free moment I had where I wasn't in youth sports or at school, I was on the sidelines and the film tower doing everything I could to be around the game because I loved it. I loved the comaradery, the strategy, getting up in the film tower as young as 8 years old and sitting up there with the video crew at USC and watching the game development. I would watch how the personnel came in with major recruiting accolades and they weren't as good as everybody thought they would be or vice versa. You have a walk-on kid coming out of nowhere and I liked watching and seeing that manifest itself through camp. That's one of the things I enjoy most to this day, is watching how different players' careers go and being a part of that and instrumental to that."
Q: What do you enjoy doing when you are not coaching football?
Sanford: "One of my favorite hobbies that I haven't been able to touch for the last four years between Western Kentucky and Notre Dame is snowboarding. I have been able to get a little bit of that here at Beaver Mountain and that's been a blast. During my college time in Boise, I would go up to Bogus Basin between 20-30 times a season. I'm not sure if Coach Petersen knew that, but I really enjoy snowboarding, playing outdoors sports and I really enjoy being around my family."
Q: Utah State returns one of the top quarterbacks in the nation in Jordan Love. What are your impressions of him and how does he compare to other quarterbacks you have coached over the years?
Sanford: "I see every bit of what you're looking for in the tangibles. His size, speed, athleticism and arm talent is everything you're looking for at any level. The thing I didn't know until I really started getting to know Jordan and working with him is how many intangibles he possesses. The life experiences he brings to his time here at Utah State and what preceded his time here and the toughness he has physically and mentally, I have a lot of respect for Jordan in every way and the way he carries himself and the kind of teammate he is. I can't say enough about Jordan as a person. Since I've been here and working with his physical and fundamental development, he's really hungry to take that next step from a prototypical pocket-type player and how to work the pocket. That's going to be the difference between completing a huge ball with tight windows, maybe at the highest level someday, is how he can work the pocket and find the subtle spaces in the pocket. That's what separates the really good ones from the elite ones."
Q: What are your priorities for the Aggie offense during spring ball?
Sanford: "The number one goal for each position group offensively, and then as a unit, is to create togetherness, energy and chemistry. All three of those words are what we're going to need to achieve our ultimate goal and that's to win a Mountain West championship. We lost a lot of production at each one of the offensive skill positions, minus the quarterback. We feel like there's a great group of returning players of talented guys that are hungry to grab the torch. Our second objective is we want guys that have been around the program to now grab the torch and realize that they're going to be the ones that have to go out and get the production at the receiving position, at tight end and at running back. That's important for us is to replace that production that either left early to enter the NFL Draft or graduated. The next piece of that is to continue to play fast. Does that mean play with lightning tempo at all times? It doesn't. We put schemes in place and worked on them through walk-throughs in February and March so that we can hit the ground running today. We want to play fast and to not think too much, but execute at a high level."
Q: Will Aggie fans see a similar offense this fall as compared to last year?
Sanford: "We knew there were six new coaches coming in, seven or eight including graduate assistants and off the field quality control-type coaches. We figured it was more of a natural transition for seven or eight of us to learn the terminology from last year, rather than 45 offensive players to learn our terminology or my terminology. That's something I've never actually done in a new environment, and it's been awesome. I've really enjoyed learning the system and also putting our wrinkles on it, as well. I think our players have really enjoyed that combination and there will be a lot similarity. The biggest thing is we want to have an identity in what we do. We want to do whatever is needed of us on offense for us to hoist that Mountain West championship trophy. If that means scoring 55 points a game, so be it. If that means controlling the football, the clock and being there when our defense is in a battle for their lives, we want to be that for our defense. What we're really looking for is to play championship offensive football. Stats are stats, but championships are what we're really looking for."
Q: What excites you the most when talking about this team and preparing for games this fall?
Sanford: "It's spring ball and it's going into it and seeing what we have. We've seen what we have from an intangible standpoint of the players on our team and our offense that are flying around and giving unbelievable effort in everything they do. Now, we want to see what kind of skills we have. That missing piece right now for us as coaches for some of these guys that weren't on tape a whole bunch last year for us to get through spring ball and see what pieces come together so we can create that cohesiveness, togetherness and chemistry with Jordan (Love) and the rest of the skill players."
Q: Utah State has been to seven bowl games in the past eight seasons. How is the Utah State brand viewed nationally in your opinion?
Sanford: "My perception of Utah State is that they've transformed greatly over the years. I came here on an official visit in 1999 when Mick Dennehy was the head coach. He had been on the job for two weeks by the time I came up on my official visit. The transformation of this program from 1999 to 2019 is remarkable. That's the perception of the outside looking in is a program with a big chip on its shoulders that's constantly striving to get better each and every year. The process that began with Brent Guy, the former defensive coordinator of mine when I was a quarterback at Boise State, then coach Andersen took it to unforeseen heights to win a conference championship. Coach (Matt) Wells and that whole staff and the recruiting efforts they put in and enhancing the roster. I had the chance to coach against them in 2014 and the type of caliber of player that they had and the effort was something else. From an outside perspective, the thing I see the most is a team that is so hungry right now to win their first Mountain West championship. That's obviously the goal and that will be the goal every year. Offensively, that's the thing we concern ourselves with the most is whatever is needed of us as an offense to get Utah State as a program to where we're holding up that conference championship trophy. That's what the perspective is from the outside, is trying to get to that next level, but a program that's always constantly growing."
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