It’s been a decade since Bob Davie coached his last college football game. Since then, he’s been a college football analyst, calling games each week for ESPN. From New Mexico’s standpoint, its decision to hire Davie showed the commitment the university has to its football program. Davie knows what it’s like to coach at a school where every decision made is put under the microscope by the media and its fans. In no way is coaching football at New Mexico like coaching football at Notre Dame, but Davie was mildly successful during his time in South Bend, leading the Fighting Irish to the school’s first BCS game.

Over the past 10 seasons, Davie has had a unique perspective of football. Not only has he watched countless hours of breaking down game film; he has had the opportunity to pick the minds of coaches across the country. His access allowed him to attend practices of teams he was covering and enabled him to pick the minds and philosophies of different coaches. Because of this, he’ll be able to take his philosophy and tweak it with things he’s picked up along the way. Everything from drills in practice to what he may look for when a offense sets up in a certain formation, the former Texas A&M defensive coordinator will be able to pass it along to his team.

Davie, who compiled a 35-25 record at Notre Dame, recently spoke with the Victor and Matt Show on the 110SportsPodcast.com about how covering games for ESPN will make him a better coach, “Not to sound arrogant, but the chance to be around those really good programs and evaluate what they do well gives me even more confidence that we were
doing it the right way at Notre Dame. And it gives me confidence moving forward that the plan I have will work because I’ve seen it work at the top places. There are a lot of similarities and style between my style and styles that are winning. With that said, it’s all about the players. From a recruiting standpoint, from a developing standpoint for the players we have now, it always comes down to the players. I have a lot confidence in myself and I’m comfortable in my own skin. I’ve certainly seen a lot of things and it leads me to believe I’m the right guy for this job.”

Former UCLA and current St. John’s men’s basketball coach Steve Lavin took time after coaching the Bruins and worked for ESPN before agreeing to coach the Red Storm last season. Throughout his broadcasts, Lavin would often mention talking with great coaches like North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan and say all the new things he was learning from them. Now, Lavin has restored the excitement of St. John’s basketball with one of the nation’s top recruiting classes this season. For Davie, the results should be comparable. No one expects the Lobos to become another BCS buster like Boise State, but with a steady hand guiding the ship, reaching a bowl game every season under Davie should be a strong possibility. Since Davie isn’t using this job to spring to a bigger and better job, he’ll be able to recruit knowing the New Mexico job could be it for him in terms of coaching. For some of these smaller schools, the success is determined if the school and the coach have the same goals. In this case, Davie and New Mexico are a good fit and Davie will once again do what he loves to do, coach football.

– For the full interview with Bob Davie listen to Episode 133 on 110SportsPodcast.com.

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110SportsPodcast.com features a weekly sports podcast and daily blogging. Episodes include interviews, entertainment, comedy, insight and analysis.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2011 at 2:05 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Bob Davie, college football, ESPN, New Mexico football, Steve Lavin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.