 "Photo: Daily Texan file photo")
As a player, Major Applewhite was famous for upsetting higher-ranked opponents. He doesn't want his coaching career to be any different.
That's because Applewhite, one of the most beloved players in Longhorn history, is the new offensive coordinator for the Rice Owls, Texas' opponent Saturday. At 28, Applewhite is one of the youngest offensive coordinators in the nation.
"The decision was an easy one as soon as I saw the potential a place like Rice has," Applewhite said. "Not just academically, but with the resources you get being located in the city of Houston."
Applewhite is a significant part of the "Rice Renaissance" that first-year head coach Todd Graham has installed in an attempt to restore respectability to Rice's much-maligned football program. The Owls have had only one winning season in the last eight years.
"There's a great tradition here at Rice," Applewhite said. "Not recently in football, but there have been a lot of great guys to have come through this program. We want to make sure our guys reflect that."
Rice applied a shine to their program with a renovation of venerable-yet-decrepit Rice Stadium, although the Texas game will be held at palatial Reliant Stadium. The mess on the field is a lot harder to fix.
That's where Applewhite comes in. The first item on his agenda was chucking the out-dated wishbone offense that the Owls had been running and to start the switch to a more contemporary spread offense.
"Kids don't want to come here and run the wishbone," Applewhite said. "We've been opening it up, and I'm very pleased with how the guys have responded."
Applewhite's changes have had an immediate impact. The Owls have struggled with consistency, but the Owls almost pulled off an upset of a heavily favored Houston Cougars squad in their season opener, and last week gave the UCLA Bruins a scare on the road. It's clear the players have taken a shine to Applewhite.
"The Rice community is so excited to have coaches who are enthusiastic, and that's Coach Graham," Applewhite said. "I've heard it said he springs out of bed in the morning, and I don't doubt it."
Applewhite knows that upsetting the Longhorns is a tall order. Texas has a 66-21-1 all-time record against the Owls and has only lost to Rice once since 1965.
"We're into getting better; we're going to focus on that," Applewhite said. "We like the way our guys our developing."
Applewhite was perhaps the best passer ever to play at Texas. He set records in passing yardage, attempts, completions, touchdown passes in a playing career that spanned from 1998-2001. He is the only quarterback to pass for more than 400 yards in two games. An Applewhite-thrown ball was rarely off its mark: He holds the career record for lowest percentage of throws intercepted, 2.6 percent, and consecutive passes without an interception, 156.
More so than the records he set, his drive to win is what Longhorn fans remember best about Major Applewhite. He quarterbacked two of the biggest victories in the pre-championship Mack Brown era. In 1998, Applewhite passed for 269 yards and the winning touchdown in a road upset of No. 7 Nebraska. The victory snapped the Cornhuskers' 47-game home winning strike and precipitated Texas' re-emergence as a national power.
The tail-end of Applewhite's college career was marred by a quarterback controversy with the strong-armed Chris Simms. Fans never really took to Simms, now the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the way they did the gritty Applewhite. But you never heard a foul word from Applewhite.
"My playing career was an arc, with highs and lows," Applewhite said. "Being at a place like Texas it made the highs higher and the lows lower. But that experience we went through has made [Simms] a better player and me a better coach."
In the final game of his college career in the 2001 Holiday Bowl against Washington, Applewhite and the Longhorns trailed 36-17 late in the third quarter. Applewhite led Texas to scoring drives on four of their last five possessions, including an 80-yard touchdown drive with less than two minutes remaining that put the final score at Texas 47, Washington 43. Applewhite passed for 473 yards and four touchdowns and was co-Offensive MVP.
If there's one group of people wearing burnt-orange who will be ecstatic for their former quarterback, it's Texas' coaching staff.
From 2002-2004 Applewhite was as a graduate assistant under Texas head coach Mack Brown. During that time he worked with offensive line coach Mac McWhorter, an experience that Applewhite said was more valuable to his development as a coach than anything he learned as a player.
He then followed Greg Robinson to Syracuse, where he spent the 2005 season as the quarterbacks coach. It wasn't long before he came back to Texas, just not with the Longhorns.
Applewhite and Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis spent an hour on the phone the night before the 2006 Rose Bowl discussing a job change. Applewhite moved move to Rice from Syracuse, where he served as quarterbacks coach during the 2005 season.
Not even 30, Applewhite has already done much to instill the winning tradition he cultivated as a player at Texas in his Rice players.
"It's about confidence. We talk a lot about preparation and belief in one's self," Applewhite said. "We just need something to hang our hat on."
Be the first to comment on this article!