There are few places less enviable in sports than being the follow-up act to one of the greats.
When Andrew Aurich took on the role of Harvard’s head football coach earlier this year, he knew he was trailing in the footsteps of Tim Murphy, Harvard’s all-time leader in wins.
“I had a friend in coaching who got a head coaching job at a Division III school, a really successful Division III school. And then he got fired after his first year. And he told me, he’s like, ‘Never follow a legend. The expectations are too high,'” Aurich recalled. “And that was well before this opportunity ever presented itself.”
But Aurich has thrived at a balancing act: holding on to the things that made Harvard successful, while leading it down a new path. Now, with an 8-1 record and a chance to win the Ivy League outright with a victory against the rival Yale Bulldogs, Aurich’s philosophy is set to be put to its biggest test yet.
Usually, a new head coach brings in new people to stack the coaching deck. Instead, Aurich opted to keep several key coaches from the Murphy era, including defensive coordinator Scott Larkee and offensive coordinator Mickey Fein.
It helped that Harvard went 8-2 last season, and that Murphy left on his own rather than being forced out. Still, it was an unusual move that has paid dividends for the Crimson team.
“There are a lot of people that I know when I told them I was doing that, they were like, ‘I don’t know ... I don’t know if you should do that,'” Aurich said. “But it all came back to what the players were saying about their coaches. [That] made it very, very easy for me to do it.”
When I told them I was doing that, they were like, ‘I don’t know ... I don’t know if you should do that.' But it all came back to what the players were saying about their coaches.Andrew Aurich, Harvard football coach
Aurich, who had stops at Princeton, Rutgers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has also instituted some major changes to practice.
“We could tell from spring ball it was a lot more intense, a lot more competitive between the offense and defense,” said quarterback Jaden Craig, who was injured in Saturday’s victory over the University of Pennsylvania. “Guys were flying around, and that could have been a part of guys trying to make an impression on the coach...it was really [a] Power 5 mentality when he got in.”
Part of that mentality means focusing on nutrition and sports science — two items Aurich became familiar with while coaching at Rutgers, a Power 5 program. There, football is almost a full-time job for students who are on scholarships to play ball.
But Aurich found it challenging to marry those expectations with the academic realities of the Ivy League.
As he explains it, going the extra mile falls on students’ shoulders. That’s because instead of being able to spend hours on end at the football facility, players have to strive harder to handle their academic responsibilities while still working to be the best athletes they can.
“And that’s where I told them after spring practice, 'I want to give you guys the Power 5 football experience. I’ll give you the roadmap. But I can’t make it mandatory. So you have to make that choice. And if that’s what you’re looking for, I’ll give it to you,'” Aurich said.
While Aurich praised how the team responded to that challenge of big school standards, he acknowledged that it wasn’t for everyone.
“And there were guys who didn’t want that and there were guys who left the program because [of] how we were doing things. That wasn’t what they signed up for,” Aurich said.
Big shoes to fill
Aurich’s predecessor, Tim Murphy retired as the winningest coach in Ivy League history earlier this year, having turned Harvard’s football program around.
But even if you inherit good tools, you need to know how to use them.
“I think it’s safe to say that coach Aurich has done a terrific job making those decisions,” Murphy told GBH News. “And my guys, my guys being the guys I recruited, coaches and players, they certainly have not only picked up where they left off, but they’re a much more mature team, physically and otherwise.”
Aurich was advised not to follow a legend even before Cambridge was in his sights.
“But when this opportunity presented itself, to me, I was like, ‘Why wouldn’t I want that opportunity?’” Aurich said. “I’m not scared to go somewhere where the expectations are to win. That’s what I want.”
As he put it, the foundation he inherited at Harvard was strong. And over a decade of coaching has given him the confidence he needed to take the program where he wants.
“I knew I was ready to be a successful head coach. And I felt very strongly about what I wanted to do with the program,” he said. “I knew the talent was on here. I knew we had an opportunity to win every single game on our schedule.”
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
