The Citadel on a quick ascent under second-year head coach

Coastal Carolina knows a little something about coaches making immediate impacts and very quickly taking a program to national competitiveness, so the Chanticleers and their fans can surely appreciate the job Mike Houston has done as coach at The Citadel the last two seasons.

After leading the program to a 5-7 mark in his debut last year, Houston has the No. 18-ranked Bulldogs at 8-3 this fall, in the FCS playoffs for the first time since 1992 and coming off a momentous 23-22 win at South Carolina as his team now heads to Brooks Stadium on Saturday for a first-round FCS playoff showdown with No. 9/10 Coastal Carolina.

It’s what Houston set out to do from the start, but even he admits he’s not sure how many people actually believed him a couple years ago when he laid out such goals.

“I stood here almost two years ago when I got the job in January 2014 and I talked about how my goal was to win a Southern Conference championship and have a team that could compete at the national level. I don’t know how many people chuckled in the background when I said that,” Houston said in a phone interview this week. “And I believe to do those things you have to be first-class in all areas.”

Again, some of this may sound familiar.

When coach Joe Moglia took over at Coastal Carolina four years ago, it wasn’t just about what he brought to the program on the field. He emphasized his “Be A Man” mantra, quickly won over believers in the locker room and fan base, installed unique aspects to his program like his “Life After Football” seminars, over time had the team’s football offices in Adkins Field House redecorated to make a bigger splash with visitors and recruits and, of course, has led the Chants to the best run in program history on the field with four straight FCS playoff appearances.

Houston started his program at The Citadel with some key changes of his own.

“I was not pleased with some of the facilities when I got here. I was not pleased with the way we operated in some ways when I got here,” he said.

Since his arrival, the Bulldogs have undergone some facility improvements, including a new locker room, among other ancillary improvements, has significantly upgraded the hotel the team stays in before home games and improved the bus the team travels on to away games to give the players wifi access and power outlets so they could do work on the laptops during trips.

“Those things matter,” Houston said. “If you’re going to have high expectations for the product on the field, you have to have high expectations for everything.”

And, like Moglia, he won over his players very quickly while establishing the culture he wanted for Bulldogs football.

“The first thing was leadership. He brought in a great coaching staff to take over and all the players have bought in. Just the culture of The Citadel is a lot different than what it was,” junior defensive lineman Joe Crochet said, while also highlighting the upgrades to the football facility and travel accommodations. “... We’re treated as a Division I program now where in the past we weren’t getting that kind of love.”

On the field, meanwhile, Houston and offensive coordinator Brent Thompson brought their prolific triple-option offense from Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, where their 2013 team set an NCAA record for all divisions with 5,563 rushing yards while reaching the Division II national championship game.

The Bulldogs rank second in the FCS in averaging 344.3 rushing yards per game and just rumbled for 350 yards on the ground in a stunning 23-22 upset win at South Carolina last weekend.

They won their first Southern Conference championship since 1992 and their only three losses this fall came against FBS-level Georgia Southern and to Charleston Southern and Chattanooga, who are both ranked in the top-10 of the latest FCS polls.

Coastal Carolina earned a 31-16 win over The Citadel in the teams’ season opener last fall – in Houston’s first game with the program – but there’s no doubt the Bulldogs will visit Conway on Saturday as a better team.

While climbing the national ranks at an impressive pace, just like the team that will take the other sideline at Brooks Stadium.

“[They’re] night and day,” Moglia said of comparing this Bulldogs team to the one the Chants faced last year. “They looked like a team that was with a new coaching staff, with a new offense, guys were kind of learning how to play together and get their timing down. They are two years older. They have two full seasons under their belt now, plus an extra spring practice. They’re bigger, they’re stronger, they’re faster, they’re more experienced, their timing is better.

“The team we opened up against [last season] was not a playoff team – this team is without question a playoff team, as evidenced not only by the fact that they’re in the playoffs, but I think they [played more physically than] South Carolina.”

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "The Citadel on a quick ascent under second-year head coach."