Building From Scratch : Utah Coach Ron McBride Has Turned Once-Woeful Utes Into an Emerging Power in the Western Athletic Conference

Ron McBride made the rounds at a recent Utah football practice, hugging players, shaking hands with bystanders and smiling when an off-tackle play went bust.

Why worry?

There are too many good things happening for McBride to rage over anything as trivial as one moment of failure in a scrimmage.

Utah has won nine games, tying a school record, is ranked in the top 25 for the first time since 1947 and can wrap up its most successful season with a victory over Arizona in the Freedom Bowl on Tuesday at Anaheim Stadium.

It’s easy for McBride to smile.

He has built this emerging power from scratch, clearing a niche in a state once dominated by Brigham Young Coach Lavell Edwards and his string of strong-armed quarterbacks. McBride has even managed to make Utah’s basketball team and rotund quipster, Coach Rick Majerus, secondary news.

“Wins and losses establish your identity,” McBride said. “(Winning) is what earns you respect.”

To make that happen, McBride, 55, called on 25 years of experience as an assistant coach and what he learned growing up in South Gate, where he had to work for everything he got.

When McBride was hired by Utah in 1990, it was his first head coaching job. He had been an assistant at San Jose State, Piedmont Hills High in San Jose, Gavilan Community College in Gilroy, Calif., UC Riverside, Long Beach State, Wisconsin, Utah and Arizona.

He went right to work, turning the Utah football program into something he would be proud of, something worthy of a working-class man from South Gate.

Recruiting good players, teaching them well and pushing them hard were McBride’s top priorities. It was the only way he knew how to win.

“I knew he’d do a good job there,” said Arizona Coach Dick Tomey, who hired McBride to be his offensive line coach in 1987.

Slowly, McBride has been able to lure quality players. He has often been mentioned as the main attraction.

“One of the reasons I picked Utah was Coach Mac,” said senior Luther Elliss, the Utes’ All-American defensive lineman. “He knows about you, about your family. It’s not like you’re a piece of meat to be used, then discarded after your playing days are over.”

Mediocrity had been part of the equation for so long at Utah, nobody figured to bat an eye if the new coach showed he was a swell guy but couldn’t win a lick.

McBride was determined to be a caring fellow, but also wanted the Utes to be winners.

“Each year, he’s slowly increased the standards,” said senior quarterback Mike McCoy, who started his career under the late George Allen at Long Beach State. “It had to be realistic. This year, our goal was to win the conference. We should have won it. The next thing the program is going to have to learn is how to find ways to win.”

The slow climb to a 9-2 record, a No. 14 ranking, a tie for second place in the Western Athletic Conference and a third consecutive bowl appearance, began with a 4-7 season in 1990.

The Utes were 7-5 in 1991, 6-6 in ’92 and 7-6 last season. This season, they were two games away from an undefeated regular season and their first conference title since 1964.

In the beginning, McBride hammered away at the Utes’ attitude.

“Everyone who had something to do with the program--from the players and coaches to the guy who opens the weight room--had to be on the same page,” McBride said.

In the past, the Utes and their fans had to be content with such mixed results as Scott Mitchell’s 631-yard passing performance against Air Force in 1988--a game Utah lost, 56-49.

McBride made it clear that would no longer be acceptable.

At one point in the season, he might have raised expectations too far.

When the Utes were 8-0, with victories over eventual conference champions Colorado State and Oregon, interest and expectation were at all-time highs.

“We were 8-0 and got to the point where it was all new to us,” McBride said. “It was another learning experience. You get too many people telling you how good you are and you forget you have to get it done on Saturday.”

Sure enough, Utah then lost consecutive games to New Mexico and Air Force--games the Utes say they should have won.

Utah rallied to defeat BYU, 34-31, for the second season in a row and landed in the Freedom Bowl again. The Utes lost to USC, 28-21, in last year’s game.

Certainly, Utah would rather be playing Michigan in the Holiday Bowl, but McBride believes there is still time, and room, for improvement.

At season’s end, McBride will update the list of mistakes and failures he keeps in his office. He believes the key isn’t dwelling on problems but in creating ways to solve them.

“As soon as the season’s over I’ll go back through the whole thing and look for ways to get better,” he said. “I’ll try to turn the negatives into positives. If a kid isn’t a good reader, you work with him and help him become a good reader.”

McBride’s not through molding, pushing, prodding and creating. When at last he’s done, when it’s a given that Utah is a top-25 team, he’ll stand back and smile.

And why not? He’s been doing that all along.