There are few less enviable places in sports than being the sequel to one of the greats.

When Andrew Aurich assumed the role of head football coach at Harvard earlier this year, he knew he was following in the footsteps of Tim Murphy, Harvard’s all-time winning leader.

“I had a coaching friend who got a head coaching job at a Division III school, a very successful Division III school. And then he got fired after his first year. And he said to me, ‘Never follow a legend.’ The expectations are too high,” Aurich recalled. “And that was long before this opportunity presented itself.”

Nancy Gonzalez

GBH News

But Aurich managed to find the right balance: retaining the elements that made Harvard successful, while leading it on a new path. Now, with an 8-1 record and a chance to win the Ivy League with a win over the rival Yale Bulldogs, Aurich’s philosophy is about to be put to the test.

Usually a new head coach brings in new people to complete the coaching. Instead, Aurich opted to retain several key coaches from the Murphy era, including defensive coordinator Scott Larkee and offensive coordinator Mickey Fein.

It helped that Harvard went 8-2 last season and Murphy left of his own accord rather than being forced out. Still, it was an unusual decision that paid off for the Crimson team.

“There’s a lot of people I know when I told them I was doing this, they were like, ‘I don’t know… I don’t know if you should do this,'” Aurich said. “But it all came back to what the players said about their coaches. (It) made it very, very easy for me.

Aurich, who made stops at Princeton, Rutgers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, also instituted major changes in his coaching.

Nancy Gonzalez

GBH News

“We saw in spring ball that it was a lot more intense, a lot more competitive between the offense and the defense,” said quarterback Jaden Craig, who was
hurt during Saturday’s victory against the University of Pennsylvania. “Guys were flying all over the place, and it could have been because guys were trying to make a good impression on coach…it was definitely (a) Power 5 mentality when he came in.”

Part of that mentality means focusing on nutrition and sports science — two things Aurich became familiar with while coaching at Rutgers, a Power 5 program. There, football is almost a job full-time for scholarship students to play ball.

But Aurich struggled to reconcile those expectations with the academic realities of the Ivy League.

As he explains, going the extra mile falls on the students. This is because instead of being able to spend hours in football facilities, players must put more effort into fulfilling their academic responsibilities while striving to be the best athletes they can be.

“And that’s when I told them after spring practice, ‘I want to give you the experience of Power 5 football.’ I’ll give you the road map. But I can’t make it mandatory, so you have to make that choice, and if that’s what you’re looking for, I’ll give it to you,” Aurich said.

Although Aurich praised the way the team responded to this challenge of big-school standards, he acknowledged it wasn’t for everyone.

“And there were guys that didn’t want that and there were guys that left the program because of the way we were doing things. That’s not what they signed up for,” Aurich said.

Big shoes to fill

Aurich’s predecessor, Tim Murphy, retired as the winningest coach in Ivy League history earlier this year, after transforming Harvard’s football program.

But even if you inherit good tools, you have to know how to use them.

Nancy Gonzalez

GBH News

“I think it’s safe to say Coach Aurich did a tremendous job making those decisions,” Murphy told GBH News. “And my guys, my guys being the ones I recruited, coaches and players, they’ve definitely not only picked up where they left off, but they’re a much more mature team, physically and otherwise.”

Aurich was advised not to follow a legend even before Cambridge was in his sights.

“But when this opportunity came to me, I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t I want this opportunity?’” Aurich said. “I’m not afraid to go somewhere where we hope to win. That’s what I want.

As he said, the foundation he inherited at Harvard was strong. And more than a decade of coaching gave him the confidence he needed to take the program where he wanted.

“I knew I was ready to become a successful head coach. And I felt very strongly about what I wanted to do with the program,” he said. “I knew the talent was there. I knew we had the opportunity to win every game on our schedule.

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