All Access with Jim Harris: Bryan Harsin Still Unknown Commodity on Sideline

No smartphone video exists, apparently, but we learned Monday from one of the witnesses, Arkansas State University head coach Bryan Harsin, that ASU defensive coordinator John Thompson is quite the rapper. Thompson, it was related by Harsin, had the Red Wolves players in a howl with his antics after a Saturday scrimmage.

The Thompson we Arkansas media veterans already knew is a highly energetic and sometimes combative coach on the sidelines, one who can motivate an average collection of athletes into a swarming, fearsome defense. Just look at what the veteran coordinator managed last year in his first season at Jonesboro, when he took three returning starters and few parts from here and there and cobbled together a unit that by season’s end was blanking the likes of Middle Tennessee and holding an explosive Kent State offense to 13 points in A-State’s huge bowl victory in Mobile.

ASU fans also had a good inkling of what they were getting with their past two head coaches, who also called their offensive plays. Hugh Freeze had a year to introduce himself to Red Wolves fans as Steve Roberts’ play-caller before he was promoted to the top job. When he left after 2011’s tremendous success, ASU fans went nuts over the university bringing Gus Malzahn back to his home state. Malzahn’s work and his disposition with his players was known nationally.

Now, after another tremendously successful season by ASU standards, including a second straight Sun Belt Conference championship, and a head coach departing to bigger and better pastures after one season, we come to Bryan Harsin, whose background as a play-caller is nearly as well-known as Malzahn’s and Freeze’s but whose sideline and locker room demeanor isn’t.

The best we know of Harsin in action has been through watching him via ESPN television cameras through the pressbox glass at Texas Longhorn games the past two years, steadily keeping his cool through the good and bad of the past two ‘Horns season, sending in plays through his headphones.

We’ve seen him twice in person inside the War Memorial Stadium press box in the past few months, on a suite level, including Monday, when a horde of fans dressed in red and black showed up for a luncheon along with what seemed like every administrator in the ASU system. The organizer, Jeff Hankins, said the turnout was a record, beating last year’s crowd to hear Malzahn in August. We can attest that the food line for the picnic-style burgers and chips was longer this time.

Harsin exudes confidence and determination. He chooses his words carefully. He doesn’t downplay the talent he’s inherited from Freeze’s and Malzahn’s brief recruiting efforts. But where some coaches such as Thompson might elicit hallelujahs as their preseason pep talk reached a crescendo, Harsin seems to keep things at an even keel, at least in these booster events. That’s all we really know about him, though.

Game time may reveal another side, Harsin says.

“Yeah, I think it’s different, I really do,” he said.  “And it’s different between the lines when you get out there. My style is specifically to, we want to get the very best out of that practice and the very best out of those players, and those coaches and myself.

“And so when you step out there it’s business. It’s out there to try to find ways to win games. We have a very high standard. I think we’re very demanding as a staff and, off the field, I think we’re able to handle ourselves and our players, communicate with them and do those things; but on the field it’s business.”

Earlier, in a question-and-answer session with the ASU fans, Harsin was asked what he had picked up from serving as coordinator for Boise State head coach Chris Peterson and Texas’ Mack Brown. Peterson provided Harsin with the knowledge of the overall process of running a program; Brown’s strength was in the way he treats  his players, Harsin said.

That’s helped him realize, even as he takes the field as a head coach for the first time on any level, “there’s a little bit more to making sure the situation, to think it out and make sure that your handling the situation the right way.”

“Coaches aren’t always right, they’re not always right, and you’ve got to go back … you may think out on the field a guy made a mistake and you look on tape and you’re wrong. They need to know that. They need to know you’re going to trust them and give them the benefit of the doubt. The bottom line is, we don’t play, they play. They’re the ones that get to have all the fun on the field on Saturday.”

Harsin’s experience as a college quarterback, both as a starter and then as a player relegated to a backup role at Boise, puts him in a unique position to understand the thought processes of his large array of ASU quarterbacks battling for the starting position. The coaching staff will know who the starter is soon, but the fans likely won’t know until the Red Wolves take the field for the opener with UAPB on Aug. 31 at Jonesboro.

Bryan Harsin has had six quarterbacks to work with since the spring, including Utah State transfer Adam Kennedy, who graduated and was granted immediate eligibility at ASU. Harsin talked about four quarterbacks with a small group of media after the booster pep talk, helping us weed down the possibilities.

“We’ll make a decision on that here soon of what we want to do. At the same time, make sure that we all understand those guys will play. We’ll pick like any other position who will start the game but there will be other guys who will come in and play just like any other position,” he said.

Fredi Knighten, a sophomore from Pulaski Academy, threw the ball “decently” and ran the ball well in Saturday’s scrimmage, Harsin said. Kennedy made good decisions, and the coach said it was important for the transfer to experience playing in front of a crowd. Lake Hamilton product Phillip Butterfield, a fifth-year senior, “came in a did really, really good,” the coach said.

“And the one guy that moved the ball with the second team offense against the first team defense was [junior college transfer] Chandler Rogers. He did a really good job. I was really happy to see him go out there and perform.”

The bar is set incredibly high for whomever wins the starting quarterback job, after what the graduated Ryan Aplin accomplished the past two seasons. At least the new quarterback will have an offensive line with solid backups to do the dirty work up front. Harsin also likes what he sees in his defensive front, too.

“As far as overall, are we ready to dominate at those positions right now? No, we’re not. Now, could we have the ability to be really good there and have the ability to [dominate]? Yes, we could.”

If that happens, John Thompson and the rest of the staff by season’s end may be teaching the head coach how to rap.