Another Year, Another Harper Season

Every August, college football discovers a dozen reasons why last year's success won't happen again.

The Buffaloes have heard them all.

The offensive line lost too much experience. The schedule is tougher. Recruiting classes from three years ago are finally beginning to show. Other programs have caught up. Coach Ethan Harper has been winning for so long that every prediction of decline eventually begins to sound less like analysis and more like wishful thinking.

I've covered college football long enough to know how these stories usually end.

Someone always claims a dynasty is over before it actually is.

Harper enters his fifteenth season in charge of the Buffaloes with another roster that appears, on paper at least, slightly less impressive than the one that came before it. Three starters have moved on to the professional ranks. Two assistant coaches accepted jobs elsewhere during the offseason. A freshman quarterback who has never taken a meaningful collegiate snap is expected to compete for playing time before the leaves have fallen from the trees.

If there is concern inside the program, however, it is remarkably difficult to find.

Preseason practice has its own rhythm. Music drifts across the training fields between drills. Graduate assistants jog from one position group to another carrying stacks of footballs and laminated practice schedules. Coaches interrupt one another with half-finished conversations that somehow continue exactly where they left off ten minutes earlier. Nothing appears hurried, yet very little stands still.

Harper moves through it all with the confidence of someone who has repeated the same routine hundreds of times. He rarely raises his voice. A correction delivered quietly has always seemed to travel further than a shouted instruction. Players drift towards him naturally, asking questions that often receive answers no longer than a sentence or two before practice resumes.

That steadiness has become one of the defining characteristics of the Buffaloes during his tenure. Other programs change coordinators, philosophies and identities every few seasons. Harper changes personnel. The culture seems to remain remarkably intact.

That culture will face an immediate test.

The opening month offers little room for gradual improvement. Two nationally ranked opponents appear on the schedule before conference play even begins, followed by a rivalry game that has developed into one of the louder Saturdays on the college football calendar. By the middle of September, we'll already have a reasonable idea whether this team is capable of another championship run or simply another respectable season.

Players insist they don't pay attention to preseason predictions.

Coaches insist they don't either.

Neither statement has ever been entirely convincing.

One of the pleasures of spending time around a football program in August is that optimism still belongs to everyone. Every freshman believes he'll contribute. Every position coach believes his group has improved. Every fan convinces themselves that this year's uncertainty is somehow different from every uncertainty that came before it.

Reality has not yet had its say.

During Thursday's open practice, I found myself watching the coaching staff more than the players. Continuity often reveals itself away from the football. Coordinators settled into familiar positions along the sideline. Position coaches rotated between drills with practiced efficiency. Equipment staff seemed to anticipate requests before they were spoken.

Only one face was unfamiliar.

Near the middle of the coaching area sat a young woman I didn't recognise. She couldn't have been much older than her mid-twenties and was dressed in a neatly pressed white Buffaloes blouse tucked into a grey pencil skirt, an outfit that would have looked more at home in a university board meeting than beside a college football practice field. While everyone around her wore headsets, caps or training gear, she carried nothing at all.

Every now and then Coach Harper glanced in her direction. She answered with a polite smile or a small nod before returning her attention to the field. Nobody seemed surprised she was there. More curiously, nobody appeared particularly inclined to speak with her either. She simply occupied a chair among the coaches as though she'd always belonged there.

I made a note to ask about her later.

Practice ended before I had the chance.

Perhaps she's a new member of the athletic department. Perhaps she's attached to the coaching staff in a role that simply isn't obvious from the outside. College football programs have grown large enough that job titles no longer fit neatly into old categories. Not everyone on a sideline spends Saturdays calling plays or coaching a position group.

It struck me as an interesting detail.

Nothing more.

For now, at least, the more pressing questions remain the familiar ones.

Can a rebuilt offensive line protect a young quarterback?

Can a defense that lost two future professionals generate enough pressure without them?

Can the Buffaloes navigate one of the conference's most demanding schedules without stumbling before October?

Those questions will begin answering themselves soon enough.

As for the young woman quietly sitting among Harper's assistants, I suspect I'll eventually learn her name.

Whether that turns out to matter is another question entirely.

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