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Iowa State University Athletics
Meet Offensive Coordinator Tom Herman
01.29.2009 | Football
AMES, Iowa - In October, then-Rice offensive coordinator Tom Herman was watching the Kansas at Iowa State football game on television. He noticed something.
“I turned to Michelle (Herman's wife) and I said after the second quarter that the (Iowa State) quarterback (Austen Arnaud) is only a sophomore and had a chance to be really, really good in the Big 12 Conference,” Herman said.
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The transient nature of the college football coaching profession often brings together coaches and players who never could have foreseen their destinies being intertwined.
“Lo and behold as fate would have it I get the opportunity now to coach him,” Herman said. “I'm very optimistic that (Austen), who is a great young man who has impressed me already off the field, will really help us in the next couple years on the field.”
When new Iowa State head football coach Paul Rhoads assumed leadership of the ISU program, he immediately went after Herman. Bringing an innovative coach to Ames with such an impressive resume has Cyclone fans talking. When you look at what Herman's offenses have accomplished, it is hard not to get excited.
“I was impressed by how creative Tom's offenses had been and how he could tailor his schemes to fit the talent available,” Rhoads said. “But I was also impressed with his range of contacts in the state of Texas and how that could help us in recruiting.”
You certainly can't argue with the numbers. Herman's Rice offenses literally re-wrote the Owl record book last fall, breaking more than 50 school records. More importantly, Rice won 10 games for just the second time in school history, including a 38-14 win over Western Michigan in the Texas Bowl. The win marked the Owls' first bowl victory since 1954.
As a team, Rice ranked in the top 10 nationally in passing offense, scoring offense and total offense. The Owl's spread attack, accomplished frequently with no huddle, was quarterbacked by Chase Clement and featured wide receiver Jarrett Dillard, who led the NCAA with 20 TD catches last season. Herman managed the unique skill of Clement, who scored via a run, threw a TD pass and scored on a reception in two games. The success of Herman's offense at Rice is not lost on Arnaud.
“Coach Herman is a really smart guy,” Arnaud said. “This is a great opportunity for me. I am going to be a sponge and soak up as much knowledge as I can to be the best possible quarterback for Iowa State.”
Herman emphasizes the offense will adapt to strengths of Iowa State's current roster.
“One of the things we did at Rice, was limit the formations and motions to what our team was capable of doing,” Herman said. “We're not going to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. At Rice, our quarterback and receivers were our strength. I can tell you that at Iowa State we're going to spread, go no huddle and be up tempo. But what we do will fit the skill set of our players at Iowa State.”
Herman spoke to the surge of college teams now using some sort of spread offense.
“In college football, it's really hard to win now if you don't have a good quarterback,” Herman said. “Ten to 20 years ago you could hand it off to a tailback and play really great defense, have a quarterback go 8-of-19 for 150 yards and one TD and that was a good game for your offense. Today teams and offenses reflect the belief that on a field 54 yards wide and 100 yards long, defenses are really going to be challenged to cover the whole field. When you factor in no huddle, a quarterback who can run and the shotgun, it makes it possible to go where the defenders aren't.”
Herman says offense is not all hurry, hurry, hurry.
“We scored a lot on drives less than two minutes long,” Herman said. “But at the same time, we were able to control the tempo when we needed to like in our bowl game where we were able to control the pace and hold the ball for 39 minutes. Our goal is not to run 100 plays a game. Our goal is not to go as fast as we can. But we will go as fast as we can if we feel that will give us an advantage.”
Herman has been on the road recruiting since arriving in Ames.
“I knew a lot more about Paul Rhoads than he knew about me,” Herman said. “But I had heard a lot of good things about him. I've also heard from other coaches about the loyalty of Iowa State fans. That and the opportunity to bring this offense into the Big 12 made the move a no-brainer.”
Herman was born in Cincinnati and raised in southern California. He attended Cal-Davis before transferring to California Lutheran in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He earned all-conference honors as a wide receiver there, graduating cum laude in business administration. He worked in radio and had a stint as a highlight coordinator for Fox Sports before taking a coaching job at Texas Lutheran and then securing a graduate assistant position at Texas.
“I had already applied to the graduate school at University of Texas and was going to start working on my masters,” Herman said. “(Texas) had a GA opening two weeks into my spring semester. I got into graduate school and then packed up all my stuff and was up there by Friday and spent two years as a graduate assistant at Texas.”
Herman worked four years as an assistant coach at Houston, enjoying a pair of conference titles as three of his wide receivers earned All-America honors. Then it was on to Texas State (2005-06) where his Bobcat squads led the Southland Conference in total offense. The 2005 Texas State team was eighth nationally in scoring and made it to the NCAA FCS semifinal before losing to Northern Iowa.
Herman has honed his coaching philosophy at each coaching stop.
“It has been a combination of 10 years of coaching,” said the 33-year-old Herman. “I've always sought out people like (Wyoming head coach and former Missouri offensive coordinator) Dave Christiansen, (Kansas offensive coordinator) Ed Warriner, and (Oregon offensive coordinator) Chip Kelly, always wanting to stay on the cutting edge.”
Herman is sharp. He is a member of Mensa the largest, oldest, and best known high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardized, supervised intelligence test. Mensa is formally composed of national groups and the umbrella organization Mensa International.
“Signing day is Feb. 4,” Herman said. “We need to finish recruiting on a strong note and start studying.”
Class begins immediately.
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