These Colonels have come a long, long way

I started this job on November 13, 2009. I was a part-time sports reporter for a month and a half while our former Managing Editor cleaned up the news room.

I hopped on board full-time on Jan. 4, 2010 — a Monday.

My first actual day on the job was hectic and it’s a day that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.

We made our sports section. It was 100 percent done by about 5 p.m. Our deadline in those days was 9 p.m. (thank goodness, we’ve gotten smart and have fixed those brutally late Mondays now).

At about 7:30 p.m., my phone rings. On the other end of the line was Howard Castay. He was a contributing writer for us then and he still is today.

He had a list of coaching candidates for Nicholls State University’s vacant head coaching position. He said he had information that Charlie Stubbs was going to be the guy, but that a lot of locals wanted UL-Lafayette assistant Tim Rebowe, who was also a finalist at the time.

Howard’s information was right. The Colonels hired Stubbs and it ended up going down as one of the biggest blunders in the history of the program.

Stubbs had football acumen. The guy know him some offense.

But he didn’t know him some Thibodaux, Louisiana.

He never tried to make himself a part of the community and he never recruited enough local talent to attract fans.

The Colonels sunk under his watch to new depths — so low that it was hard to imagine a path to a turnaround.

Folks, we’re been spoiled here in the past few years, but I hope everyone appreciates and understands how far Nicholls has come.

In the last season of the Stubbs Era, Nicholls wasn’t just a bad football team. They may have been the worst team in the country.

Nicholls lost all 12 games, but didn’t even have a chance to win any of them. They lost by double-digits in all 12 games and by 20 or more 9 times.

It gets worse.

The Colonels were beaten by 30 or more points six times in that 2014 season — half of the games they played. Oh yeah, and they were also beaten by 50 or more points 3 times and by 60 or more twice.

It was ugly, rotten football. It was painful to watch as a fan of the sport and painful to make interesting as a reporter covering the action from afar.

But then Nicholls cashed in on its second chance.

With Stubbs out, the Colonels opened up their job again and Rebowe — finally — was the guy the Colonels were interested in doing business with.

And it’s been a total 180 ever since.

On the day Rebowe was hired, he promised to change the program around. I attended that news conference and loved his energy. Admittedly, I didn’t think he could do a lot of the things that he promised, but I am happy to report that I was wrong and I’ll eat my words.

He said he’d recruit local. He has. The Colonels are predominantly a Louisiana-based team.

He said he’s simply the team’s defense. They have. Nicholls went from allowing 40, 50, 60 or even 70 points in some games to leading the Southland Conference — a unit that is as salty as any in the entire FCS.

And he said the Colonels would win championships. This one is the one that I didn’t think would ever come to fruition.

I always believed in Rebowe. I wrote a column talking about how approach and accolades at the time of his hire. But I just didn’t think the Colonels would ever get all the way to the top under his watch. I thought they had too far to go and established programs like Sam Houston, Central Arkansas and others wouldn’t relinquish their positions at the top.

Well, it took a handful of seasons, but the Colonels did it.

After making the FCS Playoffs last year, the team returned the slew of its roster this fall and they’ve now taken it one further, winning the Southland Conference Championship.

The playoffs begin tomorrow and where it all goes from here, one will never know.

But I know this: those Colonels have come an awfully long way in the past half-decade.

The progress that this team has made in the time Rebowe has been with the Colonels is unbelievable. He and his coaching staff have built up a program that was near the bottom in the entire country and have turned them into a consistent, annual winner.

There are not enough kudos or atta boys in the world to give the team the credit it deserves.

Now, it’s time to go on to the playoffs and chase the National Championship.

This Cinderella story needs the proper ending, after all.

Nicholls

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