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This is Radio The Drive with Josh Graham. We are the Triads home for Appalachian State football in the fall and we're now being joined by the head coach of the Mountaineers, Sean Clark and coach. Obviously, everybody's been affected by what's going on with COVID-19 and how things have been shut down.
Heck, even just here in the Triad, just looking around town, everything shut down as things are in the entire state because of this, the order that Roy Cooper made effective yesterday at five o'clock. But give me a sense into what your world looks like. How much of your day is spent just checking in on your players? Well, again, that's first and foremost is to make sure our kids have a place to, they're healthy first, a place to sleep, a place to eat. We're in contact with those guys daily and just to make sure that they're healthy and make sure life goes on.
Again, we're in unprecedented times right now and sometimes we have to go extreme measures and checking your kids. That's what we're here for. In general, are you a phone call, text or FaceTime guy? Well, I used to be a phone call guy, but then I figured out players would not answer your phone call, but they'll text you right back. But now with the Zoom app, I think our players really like to Zoom and so that way you get a chance to see face-to-face interaction with players and have a great conversation with them.
How much of a change is that from when you were playing? Because for me, I was told this just last week, Coach, I called somebody in radio, they picked up the phone and responded with, wait, you still call people? Like people think it's so invasive. It's almost like you just showed up at their house. People view phone calls that way. Without question, I remember in my position, Coach, you called me, Stacey Cyrils. I almost got nervous.
I wasn't sure what he wanted, but you always pick the phone up and expect the worst and hope for the best. But times have changed and kids with technology, my 10-year-old or 17-year-old are better at technical than I am. So time has changed.
We better stay up with the times. Coach K told me he's integrated emojis into his texting. Are you an emoji guy? Well, I am. My players make fun of me all the time because I am not very technically sound in a lot of ways, but I'm trying to keep up the coolness, I guess you would call it.
And so, yeah, I tried every once in a while to throw an emoji in there, but they're usually the wrong emoji. It's App State head football coach Sean Clark with us. He's on Twitter at Coach underscore S Clark. Do you think with an older team, like the one you have, that the culture of winning is already set? Or do you find yourself being a little disappointed now that you're in the big chair that you aren't able to integrate elements, cultural elements you wanted to implement this spring? Well, when you talk about culture, you know, I think Appalachian State's a great example of that. This has been going for 30 years when Coach Moore was the head coach and former teammate Coach Satterfield carried on that tradition.
This past year, Eli came in and he wanted to put his own flair to it. But again, he knew what the past was like here. And I'm speaking as a former player here. I know what makes this program tick. And again, but you always want to put your own little spill on things.
But again, it's one of those programs that's not broke. Let's don't let's don't try to vent the wheel and just try to recruit the right kind of kids who want to get a world-class education and play for championships. And that's been a great ingredient for us for the last 30 years.
And we'll continue to do that. Coach Satterfield was seen to be a younger head football coach in FBS and Eli Drinkwitz the same way. When, since you worked with both those guys, what do you view as the biggest difference between what they did? Because the success looked very similar. There wasn't much difference. I think Eli came up with some different ideas, different flair of the offense, how we call things.
It was probably harder on me learning the new system because I've been in the system for the last five years. But again, both guys are great football coaches. They'll have great careers. And we thank both of them for what they did for our program. It's Sean Clark with us, App State head football coach, kind enough to spend time here. So when you're talking about putting your own spin on things, what's the first thing you think of? Because the last time we were talking, you were mentioning how a guy like, say, Matt Rule, who was just hired to be the Panthers head coach, him being an offensive line coach and that being part of his background, that's going to change the identity of what the Panthers are.
And I feel like it might be the same thing, considering your background and what your role is now with App State. Well, without question, we don't want to be able to run the football and take advantage of our size and our speed. And then on the flip side, when people try to stop the run, we'll be able to take the ball and stretch the ball vertical.
It's been a great ingredient. This is year 20 for me coaching and all the great teams I've been on have been able to run the football and play great defense. And that was one of the reasons I want to bring back coach Del Jones back to the mountains, because he understands what great defense are about.
He was here for twenty five years and been part of some great championship football teams. And he knows what I want on defense. And I know what I want on offense.
And we have a pretty good situation here on the mountain. How are you telling your players? What advice are you and your strength coach giving players in order to stay in shape during this time? You know, when it first came out, we sent we all sent them home. We sent them home workouts to go to the gym.
But a week later, all the gyms are closed. So we're kind of going old school. We'll push up, set up. It's kind of like Herschel Walker did back in the day. A little Rocky, Rocky four onto it, you know, chopping wood.
I mean, you have to get creative now. And our strength coach, Coach Bylenick, has done a great job of sending in contact and and we're going to play. The cards were dealt and everyone's in the same boat right now and and a little bit of uncertainty of what's happening. But again, we're going to stay consistent and talk to our players and make sure they're doing the right things. How many push ups? How many sit ups right now for Coach Clark?
Not very many. I'm a school teacher, a second grade school teacher from eight to noon. And then I start work about twelve thirty to about seven o'clock at night. And I do recruiting calls from about seven to nine. So not much time for me to work out, but we're working on it. Are you more strict as an elementary school teacher than you are a football coach?
Without question, the thing that really amazed me is how much math has changed in the last 30 years. Give my son's homework. I know the answer. I know how to get there. That's not how they're taught nowadays.
So that's kind of frustrating. But we're on a great routine here. We get up every morning at six thirty, like a normal school day and take some breakfast. And we start Pledge of Allegiance to get right to school.
I could picture you in your living room at the moment. And you're like, well, you carry over the two this way. You put it over the top on this side of the equation and the kid is annoyed and just saying, oh, that's not how they teach us how to do it, dad. There's been many of arguments in our house, but we get the same answer. But how they do, I just don't understand it. So to all your elementary school teachers out there, say God bless you.
Yeah, they deserve a raise and maybe more than that. Sean Clark with us here at State Football Program. How difficult is it to block out comments from the outside, raising concerns about whether or not there even is going to be a season this year? You hear it from Kirk Herb Street.
You hear it from some other places. Obviously, you need to prepare as if there is going to be a season. So how do you kind of block out the negativity and what's already a difficult time? Well, you know, I was really surprised with the comments that you made because I'm pretty enough to be in some meetings with administrative or some commissioner. That's not the vibe that I'm getting from the commissioner in our conference. It's uncertain times and we're preparing like there's going to be a season. And until I get further notice, that's how we're going to go about our business. And who knows when we'll back out on campus.
We don't know those things right now, but we'll be prepared. And when the time has come, everything's cleared up, we're ready to play football. Is this a conversation you've had with at least one of your players?
I have, you know, especially our seniors. They understand this is their last year and they want to make sure we're in the football season. It's my job as a leader of a program to face the athletic football is to give those guys some ease. And I'm very honest with our players. I tell them exactly what I know.
And they know that whatever I tell them is what I'm getting from the top. And all we can do is do our best and we'll see where the cards fall. Last thing for App State head football coach Sean Clark. What's the best thing you've watched or read the past two weeks?
Well, I haven't watched much TV, to be honest with you. When you're homeschooling, helping my wife homeschool, she's also a professor at App, so she has her own job. We're teaching two kids and by the time the recruiting is over at nighttime, it's time for bed because at six o'clock that alarm goes off. So I haven't had much time the last two weeks, but hopefully here next week, I think so now a little bit.
I'll get a good book or watch a good TV show. Without obviously mentioning any names, what's the best recruiting story you can bring up and share with us over the last week, which gives us a sense for what exactly recruiting in March of 2020 looks like? Well, we don't know what recruiting is going to be. And, you know, our spring recruiting is probably going to be canceled.
Summer camps, they're on hold right now. So we're trying to do our due diligence and make sure we call all the high school coaches to get the real measurements, the real size, the academic part of it, because we don't have a general studies program at Appalachian State. You have to be our incoming freshmen for football. Our average GPA is a 3.5 GPA right now. So we're doing our homework on the on the what kind of kid they are, what kind of grades they have. Is football important to them? Do they want to get a world class education?
And do they want to win championships? So we're trying to get our recruiting board squared away right now. And then when the time comes, we're ready to start recruiting.
Well, obviously, App State football is massive here in the Triad, and we're counting on there being football games and carrying them right here on Sports Hub Triad. And we're looking forward to catching up with you at some point in the summer when hopefully things have cleared up a bit. Coach Clark, appreciate you spending the time here.
Thank you very much. Anytime we can talk about App State football, and I'm always here for that. Just thank you to our fans out there. We really appreciate the support. Thank you, Coach.
That's Sean Clark joining us, App State head football coach on Sports Hub Triad. Texting other football coaches I know the reaction that he had there to Kirk Herb Street's comments. And again, Herb Street didn't go on Twitter unprovoked and express his opinion, which was a negative one. It was simply Kirk Herb Street being asked a question. And you can read so much out there that says that this thing's going to be incredibly dire.
You could see the other side of it as well. The truth is, we just don't have as much information as we need at the moment. So it's not a massive knock on Herb Street, but most of the coaches I've reached out to have the same reaction that Coach Clark did, that the people that are in football that they're talking to, they believe that it's going to be full speed ahead and they're going to play football games this year. All right, up next. One thing that ticked me off regarding the NCAA's decision on spring athletes eligibility yesterday. This is a Tuesday drive.
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