Another season, a new team for Sauser

YUKON, Okla. - Brian Sauser is once again preparing a team for the upcoming high school football season. But for the first time in seven years, it's not as the head coach at Iowa City West.

Sauser, 38, resigned his post with the Trojans in May and moved his family to the Oklahoma plains where he is serving as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Yukon High School outside Oklahoma City.

'It's been a good transition,” Sauser said. 'It's different, but it's the same. You really learn in a short time what good high school football we have in the state of Iowa. It's probably really underrated.”

Sauser said the idea of moving to a warmer climate like Oklahoma or Texas was something he and his wife, Amanda, had discussed for a few years, and he became enamored with the level of football played in the area through several discussions with Northern Iowa offensive line coach Rick Smith, who previously coached at Lawton (Okla.).

In December, Smith encouraged Sauser to apply for the head job at Broken Arrow (Okla.), a Class 6A power outside Tulsa. Though he was not offered the job, the experience stoked his competitive fire.

'When I got down there, I thought, ‘This is a whole different deal down here,'” Sauser said. 'It was just really exciting.”

Amanda recognized her husband's enthusiasm over the experience at Broken Arrow and kept tabs on the Oklahoma job boards over the next few months, eventually finding the opening for head coach at Yukon - a Class 6A school with a $17 million football complex unveiled in 2011.

'I was like, ‘Where's that?,'” Sauser said with a laugh. 'I really wasn't looking that hard because I loved what I was doing at West.”

Sauser decided to try his hand, and interviewed via Skype. Although he was passed over in favor of longtime collegiate defensive coordinator Bill Young, Yukon officials countered with an offer to join the staff as assistant head coach/offensive coordinator and coordinator of strength and conditioning. They also added the title of assistant athletics director to help bridge the gap between the lower teacher pay in Oklahoma versus Iowa.

With Young clearly in the twilight of his coaching career at age 67, there also has been discussions of Sauser as 'coach-in-waiting” to replace Young in retirement.

'There has, and I really appreciate the people here saying that type of thing,” Sauser said. 'They did use the term ‘coach-in-waiting.' Until that happens, I'm assistant head coach. You know how it goes. It's literally one year and one day at a time.

'If that happens at some point that's great. But to be perfectly honest with you, I'm really enjoying being kind of focused on just football.”

Sauser stressed the decision had nothing to do with the Iowa City Community School District budget cuts announced in early April, which led to the elimination of his dean of students position.

'My daughter is going to be a sophomore, so after last season we were kind of like, ‘If we're going to do something, it's probably got to be now,'” Sauser said. 'The dean's job - I was about worn out with that job anyway.”

In their short time together, Sauser has left a quick impression on the veteran Young, who spent 37 years coaching defense collegiately at the Division I level, including stops at Iowa State (1979) and Ohio State (1988-95).

'I like everything about him,” Young said. 'He's doing a phenomenal job. There's no question why he was successful there (at Iowa City West). He has a knack for anticipating things, a tremendous amount of experience, lots of tremendous ideas. I just couldn't be any more happy.”

From what he has observed on film, Sauser said the top-flight Iowa kids would have no trouble playing on Oklahoma teams, but the sheer numbers and depth is what sets Oklahoma football apart.

'Great players are great players, but there's just so many more athletes and probably a little more size across the board,” he said. 'But good football is good football.”

Sauser said he continues to keep tabs on the West program he resurrected from 0-9 in 2008 to 28-6 the past three years.

West promoted defensive coordinator Garrett Hartwig to head coach.

'I'm really glad they kept the staff in place there,” Sauser said. 'Talking to the kids they're glad to have that continuity and it sounds like things are going really well.”

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