Newberry College has tradition, but most of it is not in football.

Zak Willis said when he was considering taking the job as head football coach there, he was advised by many not to. He couldn't win at Newberry College, they said.

"I wanted to go try to find a way to do it," Willis told Orangeburg Touchdown Club members Thursday.

Four years later, Newberry has gradually progressed, from 3-7 to 5-6 to 5-4 and now 8-0. They are ranked 15th in the country. This is their first time ever starting 8-0 and their first national ranking of any kind. They beat Carson-Newman for the first time, are fourth in national offense and fifth in total defense. They're in their second straight winning season in the conference ever -- and they've been playing football for 93 years.

So what changed at Newberry? Willis said it began with a loss last season to Carson-Newman. He described it as one of the worse feelings ever. He said he started to look at his life. Having grown up in a single-parent home, he was very close to his grandparents. He had lost his grandfather and his grandmother was dying.

"I came home and I couldn't sleep. I wasn't happy, I didn't have any peace in my life. I know the Bible, but I wasn't living it. My grandmother was dying and I hadn't been to see her but once all football season."

The first thing the 38-year-old coach did was stop coaching on Sundays. He went home and visited his grandmother until her death. He sought the help of Eddie Taylor, a former kicker at Newberry who went on to play professional football for Dallas and the Atlanta Falcons. Taylor is a well-known preacher in the Newberry area.

"I needed some guidance -- to incorporate what I believe into these young people," said Willis, who has a degree from Furman in religious studies. "I told Eddie I didn't want choir boys, I wanted to plant a seed."

They instituted a philosophy that included preparing the football team by teaching the players to have respect for opponents, prepare for everything and believe in teams, themselves, coaches, and above all of that, God. They sought to improve their overall outlook and distinguish what they can count on from what they can't count on. You can't count on talent, he said.

Talk -- you can't talk your way into the end zone, he said.

"One of the biggest decisions I had to make was what song we were going to play to get the team fired up before the game," he said. "You can't beat a good team with emotion."

But you can count on teamwork, mental toughness, execution and faith.

"You've got to have something to believe in," he said. "Our football team has become a team of faith. We're not asking them to be perfect, but we want to plant a seed. I'm glad we're 8-0, but I'm more proud of changes in the kids. Winning is a by-product of doing things the right way."

And, at Newberry, the philosophy works.

"Before we made this change, we won 36 percent of our games," Willis said. "Since the change was made, we've won 92 percent of our games."

Next week, the OTC will welcome Gerald Harrison of the University of Tennessee as speaker.

T&D Sports Editor Charlene Slaughter can be reached by e-mail at cslaughter@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5529. Discuss this and other stories online at TheT&D.com.

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