For coaches, interim status doesn't mean insignificance

• Western Kentucky's Lance Guidry is a model for maximizing interim coaching situations

The last time Lance Guidry was an interim head coach, he did something that ensured his tenure would be memorable, regardless of its brevity.

Serving as the interim football coach for Miami (Ohio) in the 2011 GoDaddy.com Bowl, Guidry gave a pregame speech that gathered momentum and reached its crescendo with him imploring the team, "Let's go get that damn trophy!"

The speech was captured by an ESPN camera and quickly went viral, establishing Guidry's name on a national level. "I've done a lot of pregame speeches before, because I've been a high school head coach," Guidry said. "I've always had kind of a knack for it. I think it's because I'm from the South and I'm a Cajun. We just kind of roll with things. We 'impromptu' a lot."

Said Guidry, "I hit it right, and of course the kids went crazy. And everyone across the nation was going crazy."

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It's not as easy as Guidry made it look in 2010. Nine bowl teams head into the 2012 college football postseason with an interim coach at the helm; a ninth team, Northern Illinois, already has named a permanent successor for coach Dave Doeren, and Kent State coach Darrell Hazell will remain with the team through its bowl game before moving to Purdue. Interim coaches went 1-3 during the last postseason.

In addition to making good television, Guidry's speech helped him land a spot weeks later at Western Kentucky, where coach Willie Taggart was looking for a new defensive coordinator. A year later, after Taggart was hired at South Florida, Guidry is back in a familiar spot, looking to motivate a team through a coaching change as its interim coach. He is overseeing the Hilltoppers for the Little Caesars Bowl on Dec. 26 in Detroit.

"I'm a motivator," said Guidry, Western Kentucky's defensive coordinator. "They like playing for me because I'm real. What you see is what you get. I'm a blue-collar guy. That's why I get players to play for me."

Only two other interim coaches, Cincinnati's Steve Stripling and San Jose State's Kent Baer, have served in the same capacity before this season. Stripling also stepped in for Butch Jones at Central Michigan in 2009 after Jones accepted his former position with the Bearcats, and Baer stepped in for Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame in the 2004 Insight Bowl.

For each coach, the weeks leading up the game – not to mention the game itself – present a delicate balancing act between the present, preparing for bowl play, and the future that awaits after the conclusion of the postseason.

"I know that usually, when a new coach comes in he's got his own guys," Guidry said. "I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be kept here, just like the deal at Miami."

In cases where a school hires a brand-new staff, being the interim coach can often be a "death kiss," Guidry said.

Using an interim coach can also provide a challenge to bowl operators. Jerry Silverstein, the president of the GoDaddy.com Bowl, said that in general, bowls do worry about declining fan interest and attendance after teams make a coaching change. But according to Silverstein, the nature of the bowl system ensures "real competition."

"They have lost their coach, but they know what they're playing for," Silverstein said. "They're playing for a bowl win. This is a reward for their season. They don't want to disappoint. They know that whoever that next coach is who's coming in, he's going to look at them as the kids I want on my team. He's going to evaluate their talent and see what their heart is and see how hard they're going to play even if there might be an interim coach in position at the time."

For Silverstein and the GoDaddy.com Bowl, which pits Kent State against Arkansas State on Jan. 6, planning a game between two programs in transition presents a test similar to the one handed the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl last January. In that game both UCLA and Illinois had interim coaches at the helm.

"It's definitely a challenge when you have interim coaches," said Gary Cavalli, the bowl's executive director. "We were very fortunate and had a run of seven or eight successful games in a row. We'd forgotten how it can be a struggle sometimes if the teams are struggling, and if you have two teams with fired coaches, with interim coaches, definitely makes it more difficult."

As with Guidry following the 2011 GoDaddy.com Bowl, being an interim coach can be an opportunity, despite the tenuous future it forebodes. A strong performance during bowl play – along with a memorable pregame speech, perhaps – can be a springboard toward another job, perhaps even a promotion.

"Any time that you can take over a team in the interim and get the job done, I think that speaks volumes for a coach and how he can handle kids," said Guidry, who with a win Dec. 26 would be the first person to go 2-0 in bowl games as an interim head coach. "I've got a team meeting today, and I'm going to go in there and calm them down, tell them that this thing is about us. It's us against the world, and that's the way we're going to go into this game."

He already has the pregame speech lined up. "I've got some things I want to say about our seniors, the kinds of things they've gone through," Guidry said. "I think this one has a chance to be better."