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When he came in, it changed the toughness mentality in a lot of players. I remember in his first meeting with us, he told us, ‘you guys don’t know how to win, so we’re going to learn how to win.’ – Mike Tagliaferri, on Ed Lamb
Mike Tagliaferri recalls a mental exercise Ed Lamb planned for his players in the spring prior to the 2011 football season.
The plan was for each member on the Southern Utah University football team to write down his goal and remember it for the upcoming season. Lamb, entering his fourth season with the program at the time, then shared his.
“I don’t remember word-for-word, but he wanted to come to a small town and change the football program and make the community a football community,” said Tagliaferri, a former SUU linebacker and fullback, reflecting on that moment. “He’s done that. I was there before he got there and there was nothing said about that town. Years later, it has completely changed.”
Lamb’s tenure as SUU’s head coach officially ended after eight seasons on Saturday when he was announced as BYU’s new assistant head coach, as well as overseeing special teams and tight ends. He does so leaving a winning legacy in Cedar City and with his former players.
However, that involved a major overhaul of a small, tattered program.
SUU had just three winning seasons in its first 15 years as an FCS program with five different coaches before Lamb took the helm.
When Lamb was named SUU’s head football coach heading into the 2008 season, he took the reins of a program that was in the midst of an 18-game losing streak. On top of that, the Thunderbirds were just 55-108-1 overall since joining the FCS ranks in 1993. Financially speaking, SUU had a budget a fraction of some of its league competitors, according to USA Today’s financial database. In 2007, just before Lamb took over, the T-Birds ran on a budget of $6.2 million, while schools like UC Davis ran on $19.8 million and Cal Poly ran a $16 million budget.
Meanwhile, the locker room was a mess, Tagliaferri recalls. Players spent more time in the training room than in the weight room, players were forgotten and there was no competitive appetite.
Then came Lamb, a stern, tough, yet well-spoken assistant from the University of San Diego.
“When he came in, it changed the toughness mentality in a lot of players,” Tagliaferri said. “I remember in his first meeting with us, he told us, ‘you guys don’t know how to win, so we’re going to learn how to win.’ And then everything we did was a competition. We never ran a (40-yard dash), we raced against each other. Every workout we did was a competition against one another because — like he said — we didn’t know how to win.”
The culture of the locker room changed with Lamb using a system he ran throughout his eight-year tenure. Players began to spend more time in the weight room, where the CrossFit exercise “Fran” became a hallmark of the team. His former players liked to note he enforced it before CrossFit became trendy nationwide. Lamb handed out T-shirts with “Fran 3:16” on the back to the elite that finished the routine of 21 thrusters, 21 pull-ups, 15 thrusters, 15 pull-ups, nine thrusters and nine pull-ups in three minutes and 16 seconds. That later became the standard benchmark.
On Lamb’s first day as head coach, Jared Ursua, a former wide receiver and current director of football operations at SUU, said Lamb spoke to the team briefly — maybe five minutes — before the team embarked on its new strict workout regimen.
“From the very get-go he wanted to plant within us that we were going to be the hardest-working team in America,” Ursua said.
While the workout routines weren’t easy, Lamb’s former players are quick to recall how their coach would even jump into every workout throughout the years, thus inspiring them to improve their effort or, at least, eliminate any excuse for not completing the workload.
“He was normally lifting with the bigger, stronger guys,” said former SUU quarterback Brad Sorensen, who joined as a transfer from BYU in late 2009. “You can’t really complain (as a player) because the head coach is right there beside you.”
As the years went on, players began to stay in Cedar City over summers. What started as just a select handful in the first year, turned into nearly the whole team remaining the whole offseason to voluntarily work out together. It didn’t end there. Lamb began enforcing stricter academic standards and mandating projects for his team to serve in the community.
“The one thing that he preached was making sure that we became good people in the world. It was more about developing our character,” said Andrew Eide, a defensive end who wrapped up his junior season in November. “We had so many team rules that rivaled BYU’s Honor Code for a long time because there was a whole different culture on the SUU football program when he got there. Not only did we become a label worth honoring, but he wanted to make sure that we became honorable men first before we became good football players.”
There were bonding exercises that happened throughout the season — anything to unify the team. Lamb also included a dress code on road trips or on the day before any home game.
“He made us stick out for the right reasons,” Eide added. “We were always dressed up as business men because he would always call it a business trip, like this isn’t a game, it’s a business trip. What that did for us, is — you see any kind of person dress up in a nice suit coat and a tie, you know wherever they’re going to, they were serious about it, which wasn’t SUU’s case for a long time.”
While many embraced the changes Lamb brought, others didn’t. The expectations led to an initial mass exodus from the 2007 team, where around two dozen left.
Players latching on through the transition, recruiting or transfers, however, all saw something in Lamb’s demeanor that indicated to them he was on to something.
“[The workouts were] bad — the sort of stuff he was making us do, I don’t blame the guys for quitting,” Ursua said. “It was terrible, but yet it was exactly what [the program] needed. Prior to that, when I was here with (former head coach) Wes Meier, we didn’t do anything like that. There was no standard, there wasn’t a culture in the weight room. Coach Lamb came here and knew what he wanted to do. We were 0-18 and he wanted to cut the fat pretty quick, get rid of the guys and see who the warriors were. You look at his record, he just got better and better.”
The T-Birds went 4-7 in Lamb’s first year, but that still matched SUU’s win total of the previous three seasons combined. SUU went 5-6 in the next season before Lamb picked up his first winning season in 2010. Though 6-5, the T-Birds broke off a streak of five-straight wins late in the season to claim the Great West Conference title — their first conference title since joining the FCS.
As that season wound down, SUU also accepted an invitation to join the Big Sky Conference, a move Lamb often has credited partly to the success of SUU’s GWC championship season that year.
SUU finished 6-5 again in 2011, reaching as high as No. 17 in the FCS rankings after thumping UNLV 41-16 for its first ever win over an FBS opponent in late September that year. In 2013, SUU opened its season with a win at FBS South Alabama before ending the regular season 8-4 and earning its first ever selection to the FCS Playoffs. The T-Birds returned to the playoffs again this past season, though this time as Big Sky champions.
A team that had just 55 previous wins in 15 years since joining the FCS, Lamb won 45 in eight seasons — making him the third-most winningest coach in school history dating all the way back to years in the NAIA and Division II status.
“We went from four wins to five wins to six wins — a Big Sky Conference championship, so he was right,” Ursua said, looking back at Lamb’s first day as head coach.
However, Lamb’s personality off the field are the memories his former players quickly remember, not his success on it.
What was it like to be around Ed Lamb?
He was stern, yes. He demanded excellence on the field, in practice, in preparation, in the classroom and in the community. However, many of his former T-Bird players remember his quick and witty one-liners during meals at the school’s cafeteria, which often generated laughs, or that his office was always open where he lent advice to players that transcended the game.
“He has kind of a multi-layered personality,” Ursua said. “He can counsel you, you can sit down with him talk about life and the struggle you’re going through and then you get in the weight room and he'll ride you like no other. Then in a few hours later, you’re in the cafeteria eating and you’re joking and laughing and he throws around the most random facts. He just has these different aspects to his personality that it was intriguing. It was someone that not only you wanted to be around and listen to, but follow. He just has the presence about him.”
He also played in a rock band, and during one homecoming event, he played bass as the band covered AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" for the students. In all, his players referred to him in the same light as a popular advertisement figure.
“He’s the most interesting man in the world,” Sorensen said, before ripping off some of the quotes Lamb would say while the team ate.
"If someone told me that eating a bag of crap would make me a better coach, I would do it."
"If anyone wants to stay in the summer, I'll be here catching bald eagles with my bare hands."
"I've never been sick a day in my life."
But his approachability made all the difference, his former players said. Lamb conducted an exit interview for all of his players that were leaving one way or another once each season ended. Those interviews seldom involved football X’s and O's.
Three years after making a giant leap of faith to leave BYU and join Lamb at SUU (a move Sorensen looks back on now and understands why it may not have made sense at the time), Sorensen found himself asking Lamb for advice as he prepared for the 2012 NFL draft. That year he became the first T-Bird ever drafted into the NFL, landing in the seventh round to San Diego.
In the months leading up to that draft, Lamb helped Sorensen through the agent process, as well as other odds-and-ends heading into the next level.
“He was the first person I turned to for any advice,” Sorensen said. “I looked up to him like a father figure to where we had a great relationship that I could talk to him about anything and I knew he was going to shoot me straight. … That’s what I needed at the time. I needed someone to give me direction. I didn’t know what I was going through, I didn’t know what to expect, so I needed someone’s advice that I could trust, and he gave me great advice.”
In his exit interview following his senior year in 2013, punter Brock Miller was unsure if he should pursue football at the next level even as one of the top punters in the FCS after the season. That’s when Lamb told Miller during the interview that his hard work during his time as a player was enough evidence that he is capable of landing somewhere, and Miller said there was little doubt he needed to go for it after that conversation.
Though currently an NFL free agent, it’s a dream Miller is still happily pursuing.
“You hear it from your loved ones, but coming from a guy like that, it was awesome to hear,” Miller said. “I guess it wasn’t advice, but he really told me to follow my dreams, and he’s a guy that’ll tell you how it is — if it’s not there. But he really encouraged me to kind of go after this thing and kind of lit a fire under me.”
Even if the football dream fades away, Miller said he is appreciative of the lessons he learned away from the gridiron.
“I look at my transition through those four years and he’s shown me what it’s like to be a man, to be an athlete, to be a student of the game, to be a student in the classroom," he added. "I learned what true hard work is, what real dedication is, what being a team actually means and all those things molded me into the man I am today and that’s all thanks to Coach Lamb.”
In his exit interview, Tagliaferri confessed his goal was to one day become an athletic director somewhere. At the very least, he wanted to work in a collegiate athletic department.
Lamb told Tagliaferri that he'd worked hard for the school for five years, and that "now it’s our turn. Let me know what I can do to help you out,’” Tagliaferri said. Eventually when there was an opening in SUU’s athletic department, he said Lamb came through in helping him get an interview. “I didn’t get the job and he told me ‘every job I’ve ever gotten came after my second interview. I interviewed with SUU in 2003 and got the job in 2007.'"
However, he said he's taken other lessons learned from Lamb and applied them to his post-football life, such as overcoming a physical or mental hurdle to get any job done.
"He allowed me to maximize the human strength and human power that I have by doing more than I thought I could ever do," Tagliaferri said.
Ursua had multiple opportunities following his football career to continue in the coaching side, which is where Lamb’s assistance helped.
Every time a new avenue arose, Ursua called Lamb, who coached him through the pros and cons of each offer.
“He was always there for me throughout the process,” Ursua said. “He mentored me through the decisions I was going to make with my career.”
The stories go on and on.
It wasn't just the advice players would seek, Lamb would also figure out how he could improve his coaching style through his players. After starting the 2015 season with two losses, Eide said Lamb asked his team for ways he could improve as a coach. The coaches were then issued a challenge by tight end Anthony Norris to improve their body language even in worst-case scenarios during games because it rubbed off on the team either positively or negatively.
“For the rest of the season, we saw a smile on his face no matter what was happening,” Eide said. The T-Birds finished the regular season 8-1 after the suggestion was made, eventually winning the Big Sky title.
Following the team’s 44-0 win over in-state rival Weber State in October, that positivity hit a peak.
“He just started whooping and howling — I’ve never seen anything like it,” Eide said, chuckling as he recalled the postgame celebration in the locker room. “He was just so excited. He took off his shirt and gave it to Naia Ursua, who had a sweet fake punt return. He gave Naia his shirt off of his back. Just gave it to him and we started jumping around.
“He was challenged by Anthony to be positive no matter what was going on and he just had that smile on his face the whole season. … It was showing he was loose and positive because that’s what we needed. It really affected the entire team and from that moment we had a seven-game winning streak. It was awesome, we felt like we couldn’t lose.”
There’s a sense of joy that jets from Jared Ursua’s voice as he ventures off about the moment he learned Lamb was headed to BYU to join Kalani Sitake’s staff.
While mystery now shrouds the future of a program that once suffered through an 18-game losing streak, there is gratitude that Lamb came into the small town and turned it into one proud of its team.
“This is the perfect move for him,” Ursua said. “This is a great opportunity for him. I know as a staff overall, everyone is supportive of his decision because it makes sense.”
It’s a sentiment shared by many of his former players.
“It’s sad to see him go, but I know he’s going to influence so many other players from here on out in a new location,” Miller said. “I’m happy for him in that sense, for sure.”
The move left his current players saddened and stunned, on the other hand, but each understood what the move meant to Lamb. They also understood, if anything less, it legitimized the success at SUU over the last eight seasons.
“We don’t think anyone is as deserving as Coach Lamb,” Eide said. “He has done nothing but treat us with respect, he has done nothing but taken care of us. Coach Lamb always looked to us for our opinions, he made changes based on what the players wanted. So he was a good coach. He was doing what was best for the team constantly, so we couldn’t have any other feeling towards Coach Lamb except for being happy that he’s getting what seems to be a dream job with his alma mater and his former teammate.”
What will his lasting legacy be at SUU?
His legacy will be that he came to Cedar City and turned around a flailing program with little to offer, building it into a reputable, hardworking championship-caliber team on and off the field, Ursua said.
He did more with less than anyone else could, Tagliaferri added. Once a program where players wanted to bolt out of town any chance given, Tagliaferri said the family like atmosphere of the team made it difficult to leave.
“He was everything. He was SUU,” Sorensen said. “When you think SUU football, that was him. That was his personality.
"Hopefully he'll set a standard going forward for the coaches that will come through there."
Though leaving third on the all-time wins list at SUU, his former players are convinced he’s the greatest coach to grace the sidelines in Cedar City.
“We’ve beaten multiple FBS schools, we’ve been to the playoffs for two of the last three years. In the past five years, we have two conference championships — one of which is a 13-team league, which is an incredible accomplishment when you list the teams in that conference,” Ursua said, pausing to piece together the right words.
“His resume as far as what he did for SUU, inheriting that program — it’s incredible.”