USD Football 1995

CONT I NU EC

When Gagliardi does pick his team, it is done from the home office. Adel "No recruiting off campus to the list of "Nos." And, like he does with everything else in his "The Final Results Speak for T hernselves" system, Gagliardi offers an explanation for those who need one. "After we won our first national championship in 1963 I just went back and thought about all of the things that we did," he said . "All the players that won it for me, all the recruiting, all the things that we had done. We found o ut that the guys that win for us are very local guys. I had neve r been in their homes, I had never been to their h igh schools. The places that I had been to, I either didn't get the guy, or if we got him, he didn't do much for us. So I fig- ured, well, this is ridiculous." Obviously, no t leaving Collegeville, which is about 70 miles northwest of Min- nea polis, has not exactly hurt St.John's, which, like all Division Ill schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. "I think we can do as well without ever going to the high schools," assistant coach Mooney said. "Our caliber of kids we're get- ting right now arc like Division ll-scholarship- caliber p layers. We've got kids who turn down scholarships in Division II to come here. We could , I believe, beat a lot of small Division II schools." The johnnies do most of their d am- age compliments of a n offense that is often unstoppable. Last season, they scored at least 42 po ints eight times, and bettered the 50-point mark on four occasions. The ironic part of this is, the St. J ohn's offe nsive line- not ma nda torily subjected to the hours a nd hours of work in the weight room like most, if not all, other teams-is often at the mercy of the opposing defensive line. So how docs one explain the John- nies' offensive jugger naut? "Because [Gagliardi] is a master at offense,"Mooney said. "You're looking at a lot of different sets, and it's difficult [to defend].J oh n's a master at knowing what defense they're in. We run trap blocks so quick tha t most of the time the defensive line doesn 't know what hit them. "We run a lot like the San Francisco

"You showmehow jumpingropes helpspeople, or goingthroughtires, or doing abunchof agilitydrills,or hitting ablockingsled. How can you pickateam on seeingwho runs thetires thebest?"

games over the last two seasons, has led the nation in scoring the last two years, aver- aging an NCAA-record 61,5 points during the 10-game '93 regular season, and 47. 1 points in '94. Although the players are sometimes shell-shocked when introduced to the St. John's system, it doesn't take them long to appreciate its merits. "When I came he re, I was really sur- prised , and l 'rn still surprised," junior linebacker Jeremy Rondorf said. "It was slightly weird because my high school stressed a lot of contact during practice. We do a lot of practice for game situa- tions. We just work on knowing what the other team is probably going to do. [Gagliardi] emphasizes the basics: know who you're blocking, know what you're going to do. "The guys here just love to go to prac- tice. They're hard work, but they're a lot of fun. " Imagine that. "Fun" and "prac- tice" rnen tioned in the same breath- by a college football player, yet.

JOHN GAGLIARDI

T here are three things, Gagliardi says, that stand out when an unenlightened one fi rst pee rs into a St. J ohn's practice. 'They're not in football pants, because we're

in shorts or sweat pan ts the entire season ," he said. 'The second thing is there arc no whistles. When we run prac tice, we don't need a whis- tle. Probably the third thing that's apparent is that there's absolutely nothing out there other than people. There's no dum- mies there's no sleds, there's noth- ing. The re's no ropes, noth ing. ''You show me howjumpingropes helps people, or going through tires, or doing a bunch of agility drills, or ! hitting a blocking 0 sled . H ow can you pick team on see- ing who runs the tires the best?"