Nineteen years ago this week the University of Hawaii football team got its first look at Roderick Long Jr. as a head coach.
The curiosity known in coaching circles as “Rocky” was a rookie head coach at New Mexico and that 1998 meeting, in many ways, foreshadowed what has become the norm — a Rainbow Warriors defeat, 30-20.
Now, a silver-haired age 67 and head coach at San Diego State, Long has enjoyed a mastery of UH stretching across the decades, conferences and head coaching tenures.
Entering today’s nationally televised 5:15 p.m. game at Aloha Stadium, Long goes for his seventh victory against UH without a loss, a streak of domination exceeded only by the late LaVell Edwards’ 10 consecutive Brigham Young victories (1978-88) in the ’Bows’ Division I history.
The pillars of Long’s success, like his unvarnished shoot-from-the-hip honesty, have little changed over the years. His teams have traditionally won with a hard-nosed, clock-consuming running game, a signature where-are-they-coming-from-now 3-3-5 defense and two-to-one turnover ratio.
It isn’t just UH that has lacked for answers against the Mountain West Conference’s winningest head coach (125 victories), of course. The ’Bows have just been among the most frustrated, as underlined by a 28-21 overtime loss in 2013 and last season’s 55-0 demolition.
Last year, UH coach Nick Rolovich has lamented, was the only time as a player or coach his teams have been blanked.
Along the way Long has gone 60-28 at SDSU (38-13 MWC), taken the Aztecs to six consecutive bowls and, at 6-2 so far in 2017, already reached postseason eligibility for a seventh. In the process he has guided the Aztecs to back-to-back MWC championships — the school’s only outright crowns since 1969 — and three consecutive West Division titles.
A victory tonight would tie him with Claude Gilbert for second-most victories (61) at San Diego State behind the sainted Don “Air” Coryell.
ROCKY-ISMS
>> On clocking his players: “We don’t time (them in) 40 (yard dashes) because I don’t want to know. They either play fast or don’t play fast.”
>> On coaching: “… but as always players win and players lose. Coaches can lose a game for you by not giving the players a proper chance to play well, by giving them a lousy scheme compared to who they are playing against.”
>> On waxing philosophical: “I’d like to say something philosophical, but I have trouble not telling the truth because I’m not smart enough to tell a lie and remember the lie I said.”
>> On not scheduling BYU: “They’re saying they don’t need us, and they’re saying they can do a whole lot better without us, so you don’t make their scheduling easy.”
>> On Boise State’s blue turf: “I think they ought to get rid of that blue turf.”
>> On traveling to Hawaii: “Travel is a concern of mine, especially when you have to go there.”
Long’s formula for success has been ground-hugging, alternating tailbacks behind a bruising fullback and bludgeoning opponents into defeat. In time, his teams usually just plain wear down their foes, even taking the measure of Stanford and Arizona State earlier this season.
Though in recent weeks, with a number of injuries across a young offensive line, that has proven more and more difficult and resulted in consecutive losses to Boise State and Fresno State.
Because of his caveman approach to offense, some tend to look upon him as a dinosaur. But enduring 18 seasons as a head coach — including 11 at New Mexico, where he was the Western Athletic Conference offensive player of the year as a quarterback in 1971 — is testimony that he is far from extinct.
Nor is Long averse to considering going against convention or ruffling feathers. In 2012 he flirted with disdaining the punt when on the opponent’s’ side of midfield on fourth down. When BYU left the MWC to go independent he called for a scheduling boycott of the Cougars. He has also suggested Boise State rip out its iconic blue turf and bemoaned the travel to Hawaii that UH’s entry into the MWC brought.
When Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh took his team to Italy in the spring, Long loaded the Aztecs on a bus and took them downtown to San Diego’s “Little Italy.”
For the Aztecs, who have him signed through 2021, when he will be 71, Long has been a comparative bargain. His current $826,304 annual salary is seventh in the 12-member MWC and 90th in the 130-school Football Bowl Subdivision.
For UH, four more years of Rocky without a victory would be a Long time, indeed.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
