When East Tennessee State named former Florida State quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator Randy Sanders their head coach back in December of last year, they were hoping he'd be able to come back to his home state and establish ETSU as a program on the rise in the FCS ranks. The first head coaching job for Sanders was a homecoming of sorts, he played quarterback at Tennessee in the mid-to-late 80's and later served as an assistant with the Vols for nearly two decades before first coaching at Kentucky (QBs and then OC), and then joined Jimbo Fisher's staff as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2013-2017.
In year one on campus, Sanders has been able to get things rolling at ETSU, leading the team to an 8-3 mark while sharing the Southern Conference title with Wofford and Furman. They punched their ticket to the FCS Playoffs where they'll face powerhouse Jacksonville State this Saturday.
While trying to explain what their success has been like this year, Sanders shared a food analogy I think we can all appreciate.
"Once you get a little taste of success, you want more. It's kind of like eating potato chips, you eat a couple of chips, or some Cool Ranch Doritos, you have a couple of them, and you want to finish the bag, right?"
"So once we started to have some success, we wanted to have some more success."
Sanders' success with ETSU has been one of the better storylines at the FCS level this year, so it will be interesting to see what they're able to do Saturday, and in the years to come under his leadership.
...hopefully there's plenty more quotes like this one to come.