- Sep 8, 2014
- 25,449
- 59,476
This guy is a rising star w/ a solid offensive background (an OC in his 20's). Coached w/ Matt Campbell (now at Iowa State....just knocked off Oklahoma last weekend). Only been a head coach for 2 years though...but only 37 years old:
Toledo’s Jason Candle thrives on competition and learns from it, too
https://theathletic.com/122951/2017/10/10/toledo-football-coach-jason-candle/?source=email
OLEDO, Ohio — Toledo coach Jason Candle credits Larry Kehres for much of what he has accomplished in the last two decades, especially during the last season and a half of Candle’s first tenure as a head coach.
For giving him a chance to play football at Mount Union during his junior and senior seasons.
For getting him into the coaching industry and teaching him how to build and coach a team.
For making Thursday night “family nights” at Mount Union so he learned what balance, in the most fluid sense, could look like for a coach and his family during college football season. Now, especially now, after the birth of his daughter Avery in May, he has tried to find balance.
“Jason is a very proud Raider,” Candle’s wife Nicole said. “A very proud Raider.”
His players bet on how long it will take Candle, 37, to bring up Kehres or Mount Union in conversation with a stranger.
The line is normally at five minutes. The players pick the under, and they normally win.
But it surprises no one. At Mount Union — first as a student coach, then as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator — Candle went 97-4 while winning four national titles in seven seasons.
But the one thing Candle didn’t learn from Kehres ended up being one of the things that would have been most helpful for when he left Mount Union: How to lose.
“I can’t say that I did a great job of preparing them for that,” Kehres said.
===
There’s a pair of cleats that Candle keeps in his office for the times when he needs them at practice.
Like when he needs to run sprints against the players or line up as a defensive back or quarterback. Or when he needs to jump in an Oklahoma drill (they call it “Round Up” at Toledo). It’s a standard drill with an offensive and defensive player of about the same size going one-on-one. Candle normally takes on another coach or, occasionally, a player.
A few weeks ago, he jumped in to face off against kicker Samuel Vucelich.
“He took someone’s helmet and just got in,” wide receiver Cody Thompson said.
(Candle ended up losing that one, but ask Thompson, the staff or Candle and they’ll say it’s because it was one of the instances in which Candle wasn’t wearing his cleats.)
“I think the personality of your football team is going to take on the personality that you have as the head football coach,” Candle said. “At the end of the day their eyes don’t lie to them. They see who you are every day. They see how you act. They see more than they hear.”
And what Candle’s players see is a coach who’s not scared to step on the line against players half his age or go toe-to-toe with any skill position player on the team.
Ask Candle about Thompson’s claims that he’s the most athletic person on the team?
“That’s a lie,” Candle will say.
And about Thompson’s assertion that Candle has the best arm on the team, bar none?
“Well, that’s true,” he’ll say with a smile, making it difficult to tell whether he’s being sarcastic or not. “That is true.”
The stories of Candle’s competitive edge on the golf course, softball diamond and basketball court get passed around from player to player, school to school.
“On my recruiting visit to Mount Union, we played basketball and we were full go, pushing, shoving, trying to embarrass all recruits that were playing,” former Mount Union wide receiver Cecil Shorts III said. “It was like, ‘Dang, this coach is going hard.’ ”
Shorts, now a six-year NFL veteran, said the still-evident competitive fire is what made — and makes — Candle so relatable for so many college football prospects. It’s why Shorts was interested in the Division III powerhouse Mount Union, and it has certainly helped Candle recruit to Toledo as well.
But it’s also what has made the losses at Toledo — five as a head coach, 31 as an assistant — that much harder to stomach.
===
For Candle, the decision to leave his football home at Mount Union for Toledo in 2009 was difficult.
Under offensive coordinator Matt Campbell, a fellow Mount Union coach and former teammate, Candle was brought in to coach the wide receivers. A third Mount Union guy, Tom Manning, came in as a graduate assistant.
“I kind of wished I were their age because I knew they were going to have so much fun,” Kehres said.
But when Kehres said “fun,” he meant that they were going to get a chance to build their own culture — built of the Mount Union model — at a school a few hours west. Eventually, they would have fun. But first would come a reality check.
The Rockets, under first-year head coach Tim Beckman, started the 2009 season against Purdue, Colorado and Ohio State. The results felt a bit like whiplash — lose by 21 to Purdue, push around the Buffs in a big win, get shut out 38-0 by the Buckeyes.
At Mount Union, as both a player and coach, most losses Candle suffered came during the Stagg Bowl, the Division III national championship game. And when those losses came, he’d have eight months to lick his wounds, re-watch the game tape, feel frustrated, re-watch the game tape (again and again) and move on.
But when those losses came in Week 2 (or 6, or 8, or all three), he had eight hours max. And when you lose five games in a stretch of seven, those Sunday mornings of rebounding from the last loss, start to build on one another.
“That was an adjustment from what we had known,” Manning said. “That was a difficult thing for all of us because you’re faced with real adversity in your profession for the first time and I think it makes you question the things that you believe in.”
On top of the losses, the natural split — one that plenty of first-year coaching staffs experience — was felt with old regime ways vs. new regime ways.
Every time Beckman made players restart practice or turned a long practice into a two-a-day or did something differently than it had been done before the new staff arrived, the divide in the team would resurface or broaden.
“Candle and (the new staff) came in with an edge that the prior team wasn’t used to,” said former Toledo wide receiver Eric Page, who was a freshman during the 2009 season. “Guys were complaining all the time. … Guys would say, ‘Oh, we didn’t do this ever. Why are we doing this?’ ”
The Rockets finished 5-7 in 2009. The 2010 season brought more buy-in and finally, more payoff. Toledo finished 8-5 with a loss in the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl, Toledo’s first postseason game since 2005.
In 2011, after an 8-4 regular season, Beckman left for Illinois and Campbell was named head coach going into the Military Bowl. Candle was promoted to offensive coordinator, and the Rockets came away with a one-point bowl win.
In 2015, it would feel like déjà vu in Toledo as Campbell got swooped up by a Power 5 program (Iowa State) and Candle got promoted to head coach two weeks before the Rockets beat Temple in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Once he landed the job, Candle brought in a staff and began to build the program the way he had seen Kehres do it when he hired assistants of his own. But Candle also introduced his own flavor. He told players that issues within the program would be divided into three categories: hard lines, guidelines and no lines.
Hard line subjects were what players needed to do — follow the law, respect women. The guidelines were what players should do — their homework, showing up to class on time. And the no lines were the little things — whether players wore earrings, what their haircuts looked like, whether or not they decided to shave or have tattoos.
Candle admits, though, that he often teases players about their haircut choices and says that “a lot” of his team has bad ’dos.
But as he’s aged and the job has gotten more hectic, he’s noticed his hair has made decisions of its own without teasing from his players.
“No one is mad that I wear my grey hair,” Candle said. “I guess I should be more reserved with my opinion.”
===
(continues)
Toledo’s Jason Candle thrives on competition and learns from it, too
https://theathletic.com/122951/2017/10/10/toledo-football-coach-jason-candle/?source=email
OLEDO, Ohio — Toledo coach Jason Candle credits Larry Kehres for much of what he has accomplished in the last two decades, especially during the last season and a half of Candle’s first tenure as a head coach.
For giving him a chance to play football at Mount Union during his junior and senior seasons.
For getting him into the coaching industry and teaching him how to build and coach a team.
For making Thursday night “family nights” at Mount Union so he learned what balance, in the most fluid sense, could look like for a coach and his family during college football season. Now, especially now, after the birth of his daughter Avery in May, he has tried to find balance.
“Jason is a very proud Raider,” Candle’s wife Nicole said. “A very proud Raider.”
His players bet on how long it will take Candle, 37, to bring up Kehres or Mount Union in conversation with a stranger.
The line is normally at five minutes. The players pick the under, and they normally win.
But it surprises no one. At Mount Union — first as a student coach, then as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator — Candle went 97-4 while winning four national titles in seven seasons.
But the one thing Candle didn’t learn from Kehres ended up being one of the things that would have been most helpful for when he left Mount Union: How to lose.
“I can’t say that I did a great job of preparing them for that,” Kehres said.
===
There’s a pair of cleats that Candle keeps in his office for the times when he needs them at practice.
Like when he needs to run sprints against the players or line up as a defensive back or quarterback. Or when he needs to jump in an Oklahoma drill (they call it “Round Up” at Toledo). It’s a standard drill with an offensive and defensive player of about the same size going one-on-one. Candle normally takes on another coach or, occasionally, a player.
A few weeks ago, he jumped in to face off against kicker Samuel Vucelich.
“He took someone’s helmet and just got in,” wide receiver Cody Thompson said.
(Candle ended up losing that one, but ask Thompson, the staff or Candle and they’ll say it’s because it was one of the instances in which Candle wasn’t wearing his cleats.)
“I think the personality of your football team is going to take on the personality that you have as the head football coach,” Candle said. “At the end of the day their eyes don’t lie to them. They see who you are every day. They see how you act. They see more than they hear.”
And what Candle’s players see is a coach who’s not scared to step on the line against players half his age or go toe-to-toe with any skill position player on the team.
Ask Candle about Thompson’s claims that he’s the most athletic person on the team?
“That’s a lie,” Candle will say.
And about Thompson’s assertion that Candle has the best arm on the team, bar none?
“Well, that’s true,” he’ll say with a smile, making it difficult to tell whether he’s being sarcastic or not. “That is true.”
The stories of Candle’s competitive edge on the golf course, softball diamond and basketball court get passed around from player to player, school to school.
“On my recruiting visit to Mount Union, we played basketball and we were full go, pushing, shoving, trying to embarrass all recruits that were playing,” former Mount Union wide receiver Cecil Shorts III said. “It was like, ‘Dang, this coach is going hard.’ ”
Shorts, now a six-year NFL veteran, said the still-evident competitive fire is what made — and makes — Candle so relatable for so many college football prospects. It’s why Shorts was interested in the Division III powerhouse Mount Union, and it has certainly helped Candle recruit to Toledo as well.
But it’s also what has made the losses at Toledo — five as a head coach, 31 as an assistant — that much harder to stomach.
===
For Candle, the decision to leave his football home at Mount Union for Toledo in 2009 was difficult.
Under offensive coordinator Matt Campbell, a fellow Mount Union coach and former teammate, Candle was brought in to coach the wide receivers. A third Mount Union guy, Tom Manning, came in as a graduate assistant.
“I kind of wished I were their age because I knew they were going to have so much fun,” Kehres said.
But when Kehres said “fun,” he meant that they were going to get a chance to build their own culture — built of the Mount Union model — at a school a few hours west. Eventually, they would have fun. But first would come a reality check.
The Rockets, under first-year head coach Tim Beckman, started the 2009 season against Purdue, Colorado and Ohio State. The results felt a bit like whiplash — lose by 21 to Purdue, push around the Buffs in a big win, get shut out 38-0 by the Buckeyes.
At Mount Union, as both a player and coach, most losses Candle suffered came during the Stagg Bowl, the Division III national championship game. And when those losses came, he’d have eight months to lick his wounds, re-watch the game tape, feel frustrated, re-watch the game tape (again and again) and move on.
But when those losses came in Week 2 (or 6, or 8, or all three), he had eight hours max. And when you lose five games in a stretch of seven, those Sunday mornings of rebounding from the last loss, start to build on one another.
“That was an adjustment from what we had known,” Manning said. “That was a difficult thing for all of us because you’re faced with real adversity in your profession for the first time and I think it makes you question the things that you believe in.”
On top of the losses, the natural split — one that plenty of first-year coaching staffs experience — was felt with old regime ways vs. new regime ways.
Every time Beckman made players restart practice or turned a long practice into a two-a-day or did something differently than it had been done before the new staff arrived, the divide in the team would resurface or broaden.
“Candle and (the new staff) came in with an edge that the prior team wasn’t used to,” said former Toledo wide receiver Eric Page, who was a freshman during the 2009 season. “Guys were complaining all the time. … Guys would say, ‘Oh, we didn’t do this ever. Why are we doing this?’ ”
The Rockets finished 5-7 in 2009. The 2010 season brought more buy-in and finally, more payoff. Toledo finished 8-5 with a loss in the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl, Toledo’s first postseason game since 2005.
In 2011, after an 8-4 regular season, Beckman left for Illinois and Campbell was named head coach going into the Military Bowl. Candle was promoted to offensive coordinator, and the Rockets came away with a one-point bowl win.
In 2015, it would feel like déjà vu in Toledo as Campbell got swooped up by a Power 5 program (Iowa State) and Candle got promoted to head coach two weeks before the Rockets beat Temple in the Boca Raton Bowl.
Once he landed the job, Candle brought in a staff and began to build the program the way he had seen Kehres do it when he hired assistants of his own. But Candle also introduced his own flavor. He told players that issues within the program would be divided into three categories: hard lines, guidelines and no lines.
Hard line subjects were what players needed to do — follow the law, respect women. The guidelines were what players should do — their homework, showing up to class on time. And the no lines were the little things — whether players wore earrings, what their haircuts looked like, whether or not they decided to shave or have tattoos.
Candle admits, though, that he often teases players about their haircut choices and says that “a lot” of his team has bad ’dos.
But as he’s aged and the job has gotten more hectic, he’s noticed his hair has made decisions of its own without teasing from his players.
“No one is mad that I wear my grey hair,” Candle said. “I guess I should be more reserved with my opinion.”
===
(continues)
