August 5 – John Stiegelmeier, “Coach Stig”, came out on top and retired after leading South Dakota State University to its first Football Championship Subdivision championship in 2022.
University of Idaho coach Jason Eck, whose Vandals reached the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs last season, brought his former coach to Moscow last week to watch practice, attend coaches’ meetings and speak with the team. . It’s the second year Stiegelmeier has offered preseason insights for Idaho, and his visit gave the sense of a program that’s close enough to greatness to look for the quiet advantages that will help it take the final steps toward a national title.
Eck also plans to bring former Vandal and three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth back to campus Aug. 16-18 to glean his insights and inspire the Idaho team.
“I hope our players know we will do whatever it takes,” Eck says.
In Coach Stig’s case, Eck says he wanted the Vandals to get a dose of the optimism with which Stiegelmeier approached his job.
“He always said ‘when we win a national championship’ and not ‘if,” recalled Eck, who was the Jackrabbits’ offensive line coach from 2016-19 and offensive coordinator from 2019-21 before becoming head coach at Idaho.
“He is a program builder. He knows what a championship team looks like and how to build it,” said Eck.
Stiegelmeier coached SDSU for 26 seasons and retired as its winningest coach with a 199-112 record. He led the Jackrabbits to the playoffs 12 times.
He expanded Eck’s characterization. “At this level of football, you’re building a program and not a class,” Stiegelmeier said. A basketball coach friend told him that while college basketball is 90% recruiting and 10% coaching, the proportions are exactly reversed in football, he added.
At Sunday’s practice, Coach Stig was wearing black and gold Vandal gear as he moved between position groups and took notes.
He said when he looks at Idaho he sees that “they are highly organized. They are really good teachers as coaches. They are efficient on the football field. They don’t sit still. They are a well-oiled machine.”
When he talked to the players, Stiegelmeier said he tried to convey “some universal principles” that reflected what Eck said exemplified the optimism that prevailed at Brookings during coach Stig’s tenure.
“What do you choose to believe before there is proof?” Stiegelmeier asked.
“The great teams I’ve been a part of have had great student leaders,” he added.
“How good is the culture? Is everyone more committed to the team than individual desires?”
In his brief time with the Vandals “I get the feeling they’re very committed,” Stiegelmeier said.
He remembers Eck with the Jacks as “an ideas guy. In team meetings with the coaches, I wanted to hear their ideas, well-thought-out ideas that they could defend. These guys will make good coaches.”
Eck says he brought Stiegelmeier to Moscow “to train the coaches,” even more than to address the players.
“He made me a better coach in the six years I was there,” Eck said.
Stiegelmeier may also have been able to provide the Vandals with useful insight into redefining the program’s goals. Idaho returned to the Big Sky Conference and FCS football in 2018 after a 22-year adventure with only intermittent success in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Vandals dominated the Big Sky for much of the 1980s through the mid-1990s, but did not begin to regain that level of success until Eck’s arrival in 2022.
SDSU, when Stiegelmeier was coach, went in the other direction. In 2004, the Jacks left the North Central Conference and Division II football and embarked on a five-year journey to gain full NCAA acceptance as an FCS program. He says of that time that “the most important thing was that we had a chance to start over, a chance to recreate the history of SDSU athletics. SDSU was better than the North Central Conference. That was mind-boggling.”
While this fresh start allowed the Jacks to dethrone perennial FCS power and traditional rival North Dakota State University 45-24 in the 2022 national championship game, Stiegelmeier says it never overshadowed a larger coaching goal.
“An 18-year-old boy comes to you at one of the most influential moments of your life, and that’s a big responsibility.
“My biggest victory never happened on the field. It was when an alumnus comes back to campus, married with two kids and says ‘Coach, you can’t believe the role SDSU football played in my life.'”
The degree to which Idaho will develop its meetings with coach Stig and Schlereth will not be determined for months. But it can be a subtle boost that turns a good team into a great one.
“I think we’re a contender,” Eck says. “I hope we can say that every year. But going from one of the eight best teams to four, from four to two, and then winning the championship, are some steps to take.
“But I like where we are.”
