Sunday, November 9, 2008

How to know when a program has turned around

Butch Davis is turning things around at North Carolina, where the Heels are ranked among the top 20 teams in the nation.  

UNC was 4-8 last season, Davis' first year as head coach, and was 3-9 in 2006, the season before he took over.

According to Coach Davis, a former head coach of the Cleveland Browns and University of Miami, he knew his team had turned the corner when he sees two things happen:

"There are two real underlying characteristics that let you know a program is starting to flip in the right direction.  One is when players take ownership of the program. Ultimately, success on the football field is directly related to that.

The second thing is being unselfish. When a team doesn't care who's getting the credit, all they want to do is win. Those are pretty good cornerstones to build a football program on. Nothing happens overnight. It has to be reinforced."