[2024] Coaches Chat Ep.1: Coach kwheele

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This article was originally published on plus.espn.com - featured audio has been transcribed for the reader's ease.

A lot has changed in college football over the past four years.  By the end of the day, we’ll have our fourth National Champion in as many years.  We’ve seen upwards of two-hundred coaching changes since 2022, during which time programs have risen and fallen and risen again within the college football landscape.  Betting men would presume that these rising teams are set to fall, and falling teams are bound to rise.  In some ways, they're right.  In other ways, they couldn’t be more wrong.  Yet, throughout these turbulent years, there are beacons of stability throughout college football - head coaches who have made names for themselves, either with one program or more and whose talents are as unique as the individuals behind the gameplans.  To truly understand college football, one must first understand the men who control the game - both literally and figuratively.

One such man is Coach @kwheele.  Over the past four years, he’s been the poster-boy for stability - not for where he’s coached, but for how he’s coached his teams.  I was fortunate enough to sit down with Coach kwheele, both ahead of and after our recording of the “Wheels Off” Podcast, to talk about his experiences in college football; his journey from Stillwater, to Madison, and ultimately to Fayetteville via Miami; his approach to recruiting top classes; and his outlook on the collegiate game.  Welcome to Coaches Chat, where we’re gonna sit down with some of our greatest college football minds and find out a little more about both the wizard and man behind the curtain.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

It was a case of seeing what was possible.  If any phrase could describe Coach kwheele’s arrival at Oklahoma State in 2021, it would be that.  The proverbial Wild West of college football had arrived, new coaches took up their roles across the college football landscape, it was kickoff time and folks were ready to play.  By all accounts, the 2021 Oklahoma Cowboys campaign was an unlucky one - they’d shown flashes of ability in some games and were thoroughly outclassed by superior opposition in others.  An overall record of 6-6 (5-4) prior to their 13-3 loss to Stanford in the postseason was a respectable one; good enough for 5th in the Big XII, but not good enough to retain their head coach.

It was about developing a program - a three-year plan.  After seeing what Coach kwheele could do at Oklahoma State, Wisconsin came calling for 2022 following an impressive 2021 campaign where the Badgers went 13-2 (12-0); winning the Big Ten and earning the coveted 4-seed in the College Football Playoff.  After falling 46-13 to 1-seed and eventual runners-up Florida State in the semifinal, the Badgers looked to hone their defensive game whilst building their program for the future.  Time would tell that Coach kwheele was the perfect man to accomplish both of these team goals.

In 2022, the Badgers finished the season 6-7 (5-4); falling 34-28 to Utah State in the Northern Lights Bowl.  While Wisconsin’s overall record took a dip from their previous campaign - where they were primarily led by a cadre of departing Seniors - the quality of their play was undiminished.  The Badgers were particularly impressive on the defensive side of the ball: in contests where the final score was decided by a single score or less (i.e. an eight point differential), Wisconsin were 4-1 across the season and an indomitable 3-0 in their final four regular season games.  These three crucial Big Ten victories, which Wisconsin won by a combined total of 12 points, secured their bowl eligibility and were a testament to the resilience of the Badgers defense.  In the Big Ten, Wisconsin’s defense finished 2022 with the 5th lowest yards allowed - underscored by an impressive second-lowest passing yards allowed; however, when considered that third-best Purdue allowed only a hundred less yards while playing one fewer game, a compelling case could be made for the Badgers  to have had the third-best overall defense in the Big Ten at the end of 2022.

The following year, Wisconsin secured the top spot in the Big Ten West with an impressive 9-5 (8-2) overall record.  The Badgers defense continued to shine: while their 7th-lowest total yards allowed was commendable in its own right, Wisconsin made their case for the second-best defense in the Big Ten with the second-fewest yards allowed per game at 318 - a slightly-inflated number due to having played 11-3 (8-2) Big Ten Champions Ohio State twice and 11-3 (8-1) Mountain West Champions Nevada in the Almost Heaven, West Virginia Bowl Game.  What was arguably more impressive than Wisconsin’s defense in 2023 was the recruiting done by Coach kwheele and his staff - which brought them the #6 recruiting class in the country by season’s end.

Although a Top 10 recruiting class is indicative of sustained, long-term success, Coach kwheele’s approach to recruiting almost guarantees it.  Unlike a number of his contemporaries, Coach kwheele is particularly selective when it comes to recruits.  Center of attention work ethic?  Not for him, that guy won’t be enough of a team player.  Skips classes often?  Student-athletes are meant to be students first, even in today’s era of NIL.  Skips leg day?  Pass, that sort of behavior displays a compromised work ethic.  Frailty?  Complacency?  Narcissism?  Pass, pass, and pass.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a five-star recruit or a walk-on, within Coach kwheele’s team you become a member of the family, and you’re held to a higher standard of conduct not out of an attachment to what some players may view as “antiquated values,” but out of respect that you can be and ought to be the best version of yourself for both the team and player.

It was to prevent the wrong driver from getting behind the wheel of a Cadillac.  After the departure of Coach @cultur3 (may he rest in powder) for UNLV a mere three weeks into the 2024 campaign, the University of Miami and the Atlantic Coast Conference scrambled to find a suitable replacement.  Their goal was to find a suitable interim head coach who could stabilize the Hurricanes in 2024 and who may be convinced to come aboard long-term.  With a year remaining on his Wisconsin deal and a proven coaching acumen alongside an ability to build a team for the future, Coach kwheelerwas identified and tapped for the job.  Finishing the 2024 campaign with a combined 6-6 record across both Madison and Miami and a recruiting composite of 1.93 - good for 23rd in the nation - Coach kwheele accomplished a particularly rare feat: he guided two programs to respectable finishes in a single campaign.

It was time to test the waters.  By his own admission, the Miami job was never Coach kwheele’s long-term plan - but after four seasons with three teams, it was time to settle down.  Three programs were on Coach kwheele’s radar:  San Diego State, Toledo, and Arkansas.  Why these three?  Strong defenses, strong rushing offenses, and strong recruiting grounds - three characteristics that we’ve come to associate Coach kwheele with during his coaching career.  Why the Razorbacks?  Arkansas, a team which has gone 22-27 (12-20) over the past four seasons, are the perfect team to settle down at: with a 2024 regular season record of 7-5 (3-5) - their best since 2021 - the Razorbacks are on the up, but have never truly tasted rock-bottom.  With a steady hand from Coach kwheele, I’d say that Arkansas are poised to enjoy sustained success through solid coaching and unapologetically pragmatic recruiting; all with a head coach who’s raring to get there and create a dynasty.  In short, it’s the perfect spot for a coach who’s been looking for just the right place to call home, and I can’t wait to see what Coach kwheele and his Razorbacks can do.

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Thanks for checking-in football fans, a little shorter-form with less walls of statistics (with a few nuggets embedded here or there for the keen reader), but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless.  Special thanks to Coach @kwheele once again for taking the time to have me on "Wheels Off" a few weeks back and for taking the time to sit and chat - one thing we found out is that we're both storytellers (read: long-winded), so we covered a lot of ground over a couple of cups of coffee, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Looking to keep this series going over the offseason so that we can continue to explore the journeys of our fellow-coaches and hopefully learn a little bit more about everyone along the way, so please, reach out if you'd like to chat or if you think one of your colleagues ought to feature on the program next.

Without further ado, Happy Natty Day everyone - until next time!