This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in September 2018.
Fordham football coach Joe Conlin, 39, is technically new to this.
The 2002 graduate of Pittsburgh University is in his first year as a head coach in college football. You would think that he might be working out the kinks in his first rodeo as the captain of a collegiate ship. However, you wouldn’t know it by hearing him speak, as he has hit the ground running with clear goals in mind for the Rams.
“I want us to take steps to becoming a dominant defensive football team,” Conlin said, when asked about his goals for the team in 2018. “I want [us] to be a much more aggressive defensive football team, and I think coach [Paul] Rice and the defensive staff are doing a good job of it.”
To speak to Joe Conlin for any period of time is to meet a man who craves the process of building a good team. Conlin started at defensive tackle for three straight seasons at Pittsburgh, including back-to-back seven-win seasons in 2000 and 2001. After the end of his playing career, Conlin held assistant coaching jobs at West Virginia Tech, New Hampshire and Harvard from 2003 to 2011. In 2012, he jumped from Harvard to Yale to become the Bulldogs’ offensive line coach.
In 2014, he got his big break when he became Yale’s associate head coach and offensive coordinator. His first season in charge of the offense went swimmingly, as the team led all of FCS in total offense en route to an 8-2 record. However, an offense that averaged over 570 yards per contest in 2014 was barely clearing the mark of 300 per game two years later. As he has done throughout his career, Conlin rebuilt the offense into one of the best in the nation, and the 2017 Bulldogs ranked in the Football Championship Subdivision’s top 12 in total offense en route to its first Ivy League title in 37 years. The process of becoming a head coach officially ended in late December, when Conlin was named the Rams’ next head coach.
“As soon as Coach Conlin walked in the room…we knew that he was the kind of guy we were looking for,” Fordham Athletic Director Dave Roach said. “I always say, ‘it’s the X-factor,’ and I can’t necessarily explain it, but you can feel it, and it’s somebody who obviously knows the game, has great experience, can motivate student-athletes and be a great recruiter, and I just think Coach Conlin has the personality that can lead young men to do great things.”
The Conlin era at Fordham is still in its infancy, and as the new head coach says, the team is focused on big-picture goals instead of wins and losses.
“We want to play harder than any other team that we play against,” says Conlin. “[We want to] just play an inspirational brand of football in terms of how we play, how we prepare, the respect we show opponents and how much fun we have celebrating together.”
That’s right: fun. Joe Conlin is a serious coach who demands excellence from his players both on the field and in the classroom, but he wants his team to have fun, too. It’s a lesson he’s learned throughout his life-long love affair with the sport.
“We’d play in the backyard in our neighborhood, and it was a lot of fun,” Conlin opines. “I was the guy with an older brother three years older than me, so I had his friends basically knocking the heck out of me all the time. It taught me some hard lessons early on, but it’s a great game.”
Family is another very important thing to Coach Conlin; in addition to his family growing up, the Rams’ coach now has a wife, Karen, and two young daughters, Hannah and Katie. His daughters were visibly present when Conlin was introduced to the Fordham community at a meet-and-greet in January. While some coaches may become consumed by their job, Conlin keeps things in perspective.
“No matter what is going on after the worst loss, when your daughter runs up to you and gives you a big hug, it erases everything. They’re the absolute joy of my life. I feel like I have ninety little brothers, and I have two girls that are my angels.”
Football isn’t everything to Joe Conlin, but it has been his livelihood ever since graduating college. Over 15 years after receiving his degree from Pittsburgh, Conlin is the new sideline general in the Bronx. He’ll look to put a tough start to the season behind him, as the team has started 2018 with back-to-back losses. Conlin, though, will be most concerned with the team’s energy, physicality and execution. He’ll try to build the Rams into a force to be reckoned with in a methodical way and on a day-to-day basis, as only a detail-oriented, process-loving head coach can.