Tori McElhaney's article in the Athletic this morning touched on this a little bit. Specifically, what was the culture change, how it affected coaching style, and how the players are responding to it with quotes from David Curry. Here are some quotes:
Other quotes from Curry:
Curry specifically mentions that coaches say, "We are attacking the problem not attacking the person.”It's subtle, but it diverts the criticism so it's not taken personally by the players. We had this same discussion a couple months ago when an article said that Collins didn't want his coaches cussing out players for mistakes, rather he wanted them to build the players up. Whether you agree with the coaching philosophy or not, it seems to be resonating well with the players.
One big thing that our coaching staff does now that few others (if any) do in college football is work alongside the players extensively. The coaches wear cleats to practice to demonstrate drills. The same article takes quotes from Curry on how the players learn much more quickly from seeing things done by the coaches, as not everyone can process feedback given in the film room easily. This also goes for Coach Lew and how he does every workout routine alongside the players, which motivates them to work harder. Nobody wants to be outworked by their coach.
We won't know whether this all translates to better play until after a couple seasons, but at least anecdotally it seems like the players are picking up the coaching better than before. And repeatedly we've seen quotes that indicate that the players are more close and cohesive, which was something we heard a lot about the 2014 team. The guys on defense on that team would talk about how they'd communicate well and would often sacrifice themselves to give their teammate a chance at making a play. They counted on one another and it made the whole unit better. Hopefully the staff can instill that 2014 mindset in the team for the entirety of the Collins' era.