Lovie Smith’s Big Sandy Philosophy for Football (with a sip of kool-aid)

I can't really say I knew much about Lovie Smith while he was our defensive coordinator, so when he was announced as head coach I eagerly awaited his press conference. I came away from it far more renewed than I ever expected.

I've only really known Gary Kubiak, who was a cadaver, and Bill O'Brien, who was infuriating. Romeo Crennel and David Culley, you never fully bought into and they never gave you a reason to. So I expected more of the same, a temporary face with an odd, noticeable personality flaw.

This familiar disappointment never really came while listening to Lovie Smith. If you won't trust Caserio, trust our players going to bat for him. If you won't trust our players, listen to him speak yourself. He's inspired. He's Texan. He's collaborative. And man, he's got this controlled energy to him– it screams disciplined– in the way where you know he can't be bothered. You can't move him. He has the zen. You might've heard, but the fire alarm went off during the conference!

The Big Sandy Philosophy

"To sit in this role, in this position, it's about winning football games and doing it a certain way.

My philosophy… I'm old school, you know. Again, I'm from a little small town, Big Sandy, which is about winning football.

We had a simple formula: Play good offense. Our good offense –that'll help– will be leading, of course. You need to be able to run the football. There's a time we need to be able to pass the football, but doing it in a certain way.

Tough, hard nose football. Discipline ball.

That's what we you will see from us. On the defensive side of the football being able to, again, score just like on offense. As we look at it defensively, it's not a turnover– it's a takeaway. Getting takeaways and just, again, playing a certain brand of ball.

Then, on special teams: You cannot win football games without that third element. Special teams… There's going to be hopefully one of the all-time greats that will be going into the hall of fame (Devin Hester) based on what he did…

But the fourth phase… Would be the fans. Cannot play winning football without you. I have seen a day when it's tough, playing outside at our NRG stadium."

My ears really perked up about 7 minutes in when Lovie dropped this nugget. I'm not saying it excites me to hear about run first offenses– but it did fascinate me that Lovie started there, talking about offense. Smith's extremely excited about having Pep Hamilton as the offensive coordinator and I think Hamilton is going to do his best work for this man.

Our team hasn't really run for s**t since Arian Foster so I'm interested in seeing how they get this going. It's the offseason, a time for over-analysis, so it got me thinking… perhaps Lovie Smith wants to start our rebuild by building a formidable ground attack for Pep Hamilton.

As far as defense, he goes out of his way to highlight takeaways. Scoring on defense. The man practically says defense only comes to practice to do pick-six and forced fumble recovery drills. With Lovie, it's going to be about stopping the run, forcing the pass, and then taking that bitch away. The perfect formula to play in our division.

On special teams, he wants even more points and is looking for the next Devin Hester. Everyone does, but Lovie Smith personally coached the greatest returner to ever do it and that's not a bad accolade to drop.

This bit ends with Lovie's call to action. The fans are a part of this. Our energy, Houston's energy, is the team's energy and if we want a winning team, we gotta be out there with 'em.

Why Houston?

"From being in the state, there's history you got to look to. History to tell you what it [the franchise] can be. As you look for players, it's not just the finished product that you look for, it's about the potential that you see.

Being here this past year, I saw the potential… of kind of starting from the bottom floor and then start building it up. Experience tells you what it looked like here and where you can go and I've had a chance with those other experiences to be in that situation. And just who wouldn't want to play here, in this stadium? A football city supporting you."

A visionary. I want to play for this man. He bleeds Texan blood and if he could see the potential in last year's Houston Texans, he personally believes in you to achieve your dreams.

The Vision for Offense

"You got a chance to see some of our players.

I mean it always starts with the quarterback, right?

I had a chance to to to see Davis Mills from a lot of different angles this past year. Early on he wasn't playing and he was going against the one defense each week so I got a chance to see quite a bit of him, and then of course got a chance to see him as he moved into our starting role. But it always does start with the quarterback.

I know it's a little broad right now, but being able to run the football and Pep has a wide, lot of experience going a lot of different ways– it's just not one thing you're going to do– but what it's going to look like: we're going to have an offense that's going to score points to put our guys in position. There were times as you look through the course of this past year you got a chance –when we were really doing it the right way– you got a chance to see what we could possibly be."

I love the belief in Money Mills. I can see Mills becoming the best QB in our division and I think Lovie can too.

On History with Pep Hamilton

"And you said Pep? Well good. As you go back then, you know we're trying to win every game of course, then. Word gets out on the guys that are bright, that are doing this, that can help you win football games. That's what was told to me about Pep Hamilton.

Back in the day, you start doing your research and you start talking with– anybody that spent time with Pep kind of see what I'm talking about and experience. Pep went through, as I talk about the ranks, Pep came in here, worked his way up there.

People ask how can I move up? Just doing a good job where you are that's what Pep did in the quarterback room, then as a coordinator. So and I've just kind of watched his career. He had an opportunity and as you give guys opportunity, they show you exactly who they are and that's why I'm so excited about what he's going to bring to us.

It was a must as I see it (to preserve continuity with Mills). You know one of the first things of
course that I did right away: "Pep, we need you."
Pep has an expertise, as you look at his background with what he did in San Diego with Herbert, to of course what he did with with Davis here.
He's a fundamental coach that has a defensive mentality on toughness with the running game and all of those things."

Great to see the sheer confidence he has in his OC. You can't say David Culley gave two shits about Tim Kelly.

And Defense?

"At the purity of the sport, I love coaching and it's just not coach talk. Having my hands on. So to get around, answer your question:

I loved calling plays last year, I will be calling the defenses this year. Just look around right now with most of the offensive head coaches that are offensive guys. They all call plays for some reason, a lot of the defensive guys don't. I think I can help our program the most right now with me in that same role so I will be doing that."

The big takeaway here is that Lovie may very well not hire a DC. I think with Lovie, unlike O'Brien, he's prepared to delegate more tasks to others in the building– he doesn't want to call plays as a power grab. There simply may not be a more qualified guy to do it. I feel like our staff and players will feel like they have agency and it's going to lead to a more efficient, effective team.

And he's right about playcallers– the defensive head coach playcaller is a rare breed. Imagine your ripped, bearded head coach telling you personally to snap the opposing quarterback in half. This is great for Caserio too if he's really going to be a GM-on-the-headset.

Realistic Expectations After Four Wins

"You're right: four games. You know I do look at history a little bit, and you know for a guy from Big Sandy to be here you have to be able to dream.

But, again, history tells you a lot. Just looking to this week, I can't wait to see the Super Bowl. I know the Cincinnati Bengals won four games the year before, they're playing for it all this week.

It can happen.

I'm sure the year before, they went through a lot of adversity. They saw some signs. And the coaches kept coaching hard. We have an excellent coaching staff and the one thing about being in the building a little bit, we're far along in that search to get our coaching staff in place.

I talked about our leaders, but we're further along. Again, history tells you you can make a quick turnaround. I don't know exactly how many games we're going to win, but as you look at our season this past year, we won four– we had opportunities to win more.

I think I don't think it's a big gap between 1 and 32. And if you get the right people together, you can you can achieve some great things. We have some pieces in place for us to do well."

What else can I say? I believe.