I caught up with Larry Fedora this week. The former Florida offensive coordinator is one of the great guys in the profession and is now the head coach at Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles just finished their spring and Fedora told me it’s coming along slowly making the transition to his spread offense.
“It will be a lot like what I ran at Florida (in 2004 when the Gators led the SEC in offense) with some things added to the running game,” he said.
Fedora is settling in at Southern Miss and his family will move there once school is finished in Stillwater, Okla., where Fedora was offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State.
“In a way it has been a blessing in disguise because if I work until 10 at night there’s nobody I have to worry about going home to,” he said.
While Fedora said that one thing he has to do is find out about the teams in the rest of the conference, he has a manageable schedule for his first season, even though Southern Miss is at Alabama in the second week of the season.
I asked him about the difference in being a coordinator and a full-time head coach.
“It’s a whole lot different,” he said. “After practice, if the offense does well I’ve got to be upset with the defense. If the defense does well I have to be upset with the offense. It’s a no-win situation. I can’t walk off the football field and feel good.
“But I feel like I came into this prepared. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time, spending a lot of time watching head coaches and the good things and the bad things they do. So I feel like I’m ready.”
