When Sonny Dykes hired Art Kaufman as his defensive coordinator he landed a coach with over thirty years of experience coaching at the college level, including stops as the defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech, Ole Miss, North Carolina, Texas Tech, and Cincinnati.
Plenty of young head coaches and coordinators are getting their fair share of love in the media for their success (and rightfully so), but as Kaufman explains, there is no substitute for experience.
"Experience makes a lot of difference. I think that in college football, one thing that you have to do during practice, and during the season, and during the game is that you have to have the ability to adjust."
"One thing is, there are a lot of different things that I have seen, and am able to recognize a lot quicker than I was able to 15 or 20 years ago. Now I'm able to see those things a lot faster and have the answers already developed to say 'Hey, here's what we have to go to in order to make the adjustment.'"
Kaufman's coaching career back in 1983 as the linebackers coach at Northwestern State, and he's seen offenses evolve and innovate more than a lot of coaches have over the past thirty seasons. Having that kind of experience should help when he faces very dynamic and different Pac 12 offenses like Oregon, Stanford, and Washington State where a new scheme is being introduced every week. I'm looking forward to seeing how Kaufman's experience translates to on-the-field results come Saturdays in the fall.