Bruce and Crum Leave the Coaching Spotlight

Big-time college football meant big-time pressure for coaches Earle Bruce and Dick Crum. This season, the pressure is off and so is the spotlight.

Bruce has moved from perennial power Ohio State to Northern Iowa, a Division I-AA school that struggles for recognition in its own state. Crum has left sports-crazed North Carolina for Kent State, a school better known for its student protesters than its student athletes.

Both coaches received lucrative settlements from their previous employers, but they weren’t ready to retire. They felt low profile was better than no profile.

“I could have gone to Florida and stayed for the rest of my life,” said Bruce, who was fired by Ohio State last November despite an 81-26-1 record. “But I don’t want to do that. I want to coach. I enjoy this game. I enjoy my job.”

Crum, who left North Carolina under fire after coaching the Tar Heels to 72 victories in 10 years, also loves his work.

“I like being around those youngsters and coaching them,” he said. “It never really entered my mind to just get out of coaching altogether.

Only a handful of Division I-A schools changed coaches this year, and most of the changes were related to Crum and Bruce.

Mack Brown left Tulane to replace Crum at North Carolina and John Cooper left Arizona State to replace Bruce at Ohio State. Crum got the job at Kent State after Glen Mason left to become the head coach at Kansas.

Illinois, Tulsa and Southern Mississippi also have new coaches.

“Last year, if you really studied the job market in college football, it was almost nil -- the worst in 25 years for opportunities as head coaches in I-A football,” Bruce said. “There weren’t any of them, whereas the year before there were plenty of openings.”

Bruce and Crum have new jobs, but both are back in familiar territory.

Bruce coached at Iowa State -- 75 miles southwest of the Northern Iowa campus -- for six years before taking the Ohio State job in 1979. He also has been reunited with long-time friend Eldon Miller, who was hired by Northern Iowa shortly after being let go as Ohio State’s basketball coach in 1986.

Crum grew up in Boardman, Ohio, which is about 35 miles east of Kent State. He also coached in the Ohio high school ranks and once was the head man at Miami of Ohio, which is in the same league as Kent State, the Mid-American Conference.

Although Bruce and Crum inherit teams that are expected to have good seasons, the pressure to win won’t be as intense as it used to be.

Northern Iowa is favored to win the Gateway Conference championship for the second straight year after going 10-4 last season and reaching the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs. Former Coach Darrell Mudra, who retired last spring, left Bruce with 15 starters and 32 lettermen.

“I’ve learned not to go someplace where the cupboard is bare,” Bruce said. “I would not have taken this job if someone had said, ‘You can’t go there. There aren’t many football players.”’

Kent State, which has averaged only 2.5 league victories per season in 37 years in the Mid-American Conference, is favored by many to win the league this fall. The Golden Flashes were 7-4 last year and return tailback Eric Wilkerson, who led the nation in all-purpose yardage a year ago.

Winning the MAC might not be the same as beating out Clemson to win the Atlantic Coast Conference title, but Crum doesn’t mind.

“It doesn’t matter where you coach,” he said. “Certainly you want to be where you can earn a living, but I coached 12 years in high school and was an assistant for five years in college.”

Cooper steps into the hot seat at Ohio State after going 25-9-2 and winning a Rose Bowl at Arizona State. He knew college football was king in Ohio before he took the job, but he’s learning that it’s even bigger than he thought it was.

“I knew it was big in Columbus,” he said, “but in some of the isolated areas of the state where I’ve been, it’s almost life and death.”

Bruce knows the feeling well.

“If he wins, he’ll be God,” he said of Cooper. “If he loses, holy hell for him.”

Larry Marmie, who had been been Arizona State’s defensive coordinator, was promoted to head coach shortly after Cooper accepted the Ohio State job on New Year’s Eve.