Trent Bray introduced 11/29/2023 as the new head coach of the Oregon State U football. The former defensive coordinator of the Beavers and a graduate of Pullman High and OSU succeeds Jonathan Smith. Video from KGW-TV, Channel 8/NBC, Portland.
One-on-One with Oregon State Head Football Coach Trent Bray 11/29/2023 from BeaverBlitzVideo
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Oregon State bets on Trent Bray/Behind-the-scenes story of the hire.
By John Canzano 11/29/2023
An elected official in the state of
Washington reached out to me early in the college football season with a tip.
“You should do a column about Trent
Bray growing up in Pullman,” Mike Baumgartner, the Spokane County treasurer,
wrote.
Bray will be introduced as the head
football coach at Oregon State in a news conference on Wednesday at 2
p.m.
The Beavers hired a search firm on
Sunday and performed a ‘speed-dating’ interview process on Monday, rifling
through seven candidates via Zoom before handing the keys to Bray.
That Bray ended up with the job was
not a shock. Athletic director Scott Barnes was boxed into a corner by donors,
alumni, current players and unfortunate circumstances.
Oregon State has no conference
affiliation beyond next July, no television contract, it remains jammed up in a
lawsuit against the Pac-12, and hasn’t released a 2024 football schedule.
There’s a tsunami of uncertainty in
Corvallis. Given mounting pressure with the transfer portal (Dec. 4) opening,
the risk of alienating donors and losing players wasn’t a risk Barnes was
willing to take.
As one source told me on Monday:
“It’s Bray — Barnes really has no choice.”
Bray must have looked like a
lifeboat amid the choppy seas.
Barnes climbed aboard.
I’ve been thinking about that tip
from Baumgartner. Prior to becoming treasurer, he worked as a Washington state
senator who served as a State Department Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
during the Iraq surge.
His focus was counterinsurgency.
Baumgartner also happened to be very
close friends with the late Mike Leach. I can imagine those two had some
interesting conversations.
Leach, who had a law degree, loved
to talk about anything but football. In fact, in the spring of 2022 at
Mississippi State, Baumgartner and Leach co-taught a class on insurgent warfare
and football strategy.
It was billed as a discussion about
“the similarities between good football and warfare.”
Baumgartner told me months ago that
I needed to pay closer attention to Bray. OSU’s defensive coordinator had grown
up in Pullman alongside Baumgartner’s little brother.
The lawmaker told me that Bray was
“exceptionally tough, but had almost no athletic ability.”
That surprised me. I watched Bray on
the field as a player under Dennis Erickson and Mike Riley. He started 33
consecutive games at OSU, was named team co-captain and made first-team
All-Pac-10 one season. He made lots of plays.
“Normally Division-I linebackers are
phenomenal athletes,” Baumgartner explained, “but Trent might be the best
football player relative to athletic ability in the game’s history. He could
barely touch the rim.”
I talked about hitting with Hall of
Fame player Tony Gwynn years ago. He was blessed with tremendous vision and
outstanding hand-eye coordination.
But Gwynn was also a maniacal
student of the game. He knew what his batting averages were in certain pitch
counts, what pitches he hit best, and what zone he wanted the ball in. He was
in a constant struggle against his limitations, even if his ceiling was
sky-high compared to the average human with a wood bat in his hands.
Because of that, Gwynn was able
teach hitting to others.
Some other gifted MLB hitters I’ve
spoken with — Bill Madlock comes to mind — have told me that they weren’t even
thinking at the plate. Madlock, a career .305 hitter, wasn’t sitting on a curve
ball or a fastball. He wasn’t plotting to put the pitcher in an unfavorable
count. Madlock just stepped into the batter’s box in a gentle trance, swung at
anything he liked, and won four batting titles.
You can’t teach that.
It’s natural.
Bray can really teach the game,
ex-Oregon State players tell me. Maybe because he had to know it well to be
successful as a player himself. Or maybe because his father, Craig, was a very
good college coach himself.
Craig Bray coached at Miami,
Washington State, Oregon State and Arizona State, among other places. I asked
Trent Bray last spring about his father’s influence. He said that observing his
dad’s football practices shaped him.
“I knew from high school that I
wanted to coach,” Trent told me.
The family didn’t draw up formations
on the backs of napkins during dinner. But they did talk football a lot. And
Trent said of his own high school playing days: “The Monday after every game
I’d bring home the video tape, the VHS tape, and we’d watch it. He’d tell me
everything I did wrong. I learned a bunch from that.”
Jonathan Smith left Oregon State in
a predicament. He got spooked by the uncertainty and ran into the arms of
Michigan State on Saturday morning. OSU paid Smith $4.85 million this season.
The Spartans upped that considerably to $7.25 million in his first year at MSU.
Barnes told me on Monday that he put
a contract extension in front of Smith five weeks ago. The AD didn’t disclose
the terms. But as Barnes said “Jonathan didn’t bite.”
Saturday was a gut punch for Oregon
State fans. Smith was the guy who was going to lead the Beavers out of this
mess.
He was going to punch back. OSU and
its fan base were going to laugh last, and try to make the College Football
Playoff against the odds. They were going to show the world, together. And
then, Smith ditched and ran off to the safety and security of the Big Ten.
Decide for yourself if you blame
him.
“It’s hard. You lose a partner and a
friend that you’ve been in the trenches with for six years,” Barnes told me on
Monday. “The guy is a Beaver. We did everything. We wanted him to stay. It’s
sad.”
Oregon State spun out of the sadness
by hiring Glenn Sugiyama, managing partner of DHR International search firm.
Sugiyama was hired six years ago in the search that, coincidentally, brought
Smith back to Corvallis.
This search, Sugiyama confessed to
confidants as he headed to Oregon on Sunday evening, was unlike anything he’d
ever seen in 18 years.
The Beavers had Bray right under
their nose. They liked him. They needed to act quickly and line up a pool of
candidates they could compare him against. That’s where Sugiyama comes in.
Oregon State got an early inquiry
from Paul Chryst, the former Wisconsin coach who is now at Texas as an
analyst.
Bronco Mendenhall, out of football
for two seasons after he left Virginia, wanted in on the search, too.
And San Jose State coach Brent
Brennan was a no-brainer to include given that knows how to build a winner amid
difficult circumstances.
Barnes also wanted to interview Matt
Wells, an offensive analyst at Oklahoma. Wells had worked under Barnes at Utah
State.
In fact, when Gary Andersen left the
Aggies for Wisconsin in 2012, Barnes promoted Wells from offensive coordinator
to head coach. It was a winning move. One that foreshadowed this week’s
internal-promotion move at OSU.
Sugiyama vetted the candidates. He
added Air Force coach Trent Calhoun and Maryland offensive coordinator Josh
Gattis into the mix. Calhoun has Oregon roots, but runs the triple-option
offense. Gattis was an interesting addition. Both interviewed on Monday via
Zoom.
Gattis won the Broyles Award in 2021
as the nation’s top assistant. He previously called plays at Miami, Michigan
and Alabama. But he lacked a deep connection to the Pacific Northwest. If the
Beavers were going to take a flyer on a first-time head coach, they wanted to
go with one they knew well.
It was Bray’s job to lose, wasn’t
it?
I’m going to take a step back here.
At some schools, the job of head football coach is turn key. Insert a bozo at
USC and you win seven or eight games a year. Oregon’s resources make it an
easier job, too. But at a place like Oregon State in 2023 and beyond, it’s
going to take a unique fit.
As impressive as the scrambled pool
of candidates was, there were only two coaches involved in the search who I
thought had a chance to be successful. One is Bray. The other is Brennan, who
went 7-1 at San Jose State a couple of seasons ago. I wish the Beavers could
have hired them both. The challenges are going to be so great in 2024 and 2025
that it’s basically an ‘all-hands’ situation.
Bray got the OSU job.
Brennan goes back to San Jose State,
where he’ll make a bowl game again next season.
An insider at Oregon State told me
there could be a “surprise or two” when it comes to the offensive and defensive
coordinator hires. Keep an eye there. Because while Barnes declined on Tuesday
night to provide salary information for Bray, I have to think the AD is sitting
on at least $1.5 million in savings on the head coaching salary. It’s possible
the Beavers are going to arm Bray with some real help.
Bray will be on the sideline next
season. Right where he’s been for the last few years at OSU.
He told me a couple of springs ago
that he prefers being on the sideline vs. the coaching box during games. He’d
weighed the perspective gained from being an ‘eye-in-the-sky’ defensive
coordinator vs. being near players and decided to stay on the field.
“Defensive football is such an
emotionally tense part of the game,” he told me. “Being around the players,
being able to look them in the eyes, outweighs what I’d be able to see in the
box.”
Dennis Erickson told me on Wednesday
that Bray was a fair athlete as a player. Not great. Not terrible. But he
steered the conversation back to Bray’s father, and the football intelligence
that Trent as a kid gained through osmosis.
“His football IQ was above anybody
I’d ever been around,” Erickson said. “He got to the ball. He understood the
game. He wasn’t the greatest athlete, but he made a lot of plays.”
That brings me to a story. I took a
risk a couple of springs ago and left the newspaper industry. I launched this
independent writing endeavor. I bet on myself. It’s been an exhilarating ride.
I’ve never felt more connected with my readers or had more fun. But one of the
interesting byproducts involves Bray.
I am more involved now with the
photographers. I have a terrific trio of shooters who work games in
Oregon.
Another lives in Pullman. And a
handful of others work and live in places such as California, Colorado, Arizona
and Utah.
During the 2023 football season, I
asked the photographers if they could get more photos of Jonathan Smith, Oregon
State’s head football coach. I figured I might need them this offseason. The
photographers who worked in the Pacific Northwest sent a stream of photos of
Smith throughout the season. But the ones who worked in Colorado, Arizona and
Utah did something else.
It was peculiar.
I’d asked them to photograph OSU’s
head coach.
A couple of them sent photos of
Trent Bray.
They didn’t know what Smith looked
like. They showed up to games, observed Bray’s demeanor on the sideline, his
pacing during games, his stern expression, and the way players responded to
him. More than one of them mistakenly believed Bray — not Smith — was the OSU
head coach.
I now find that interesting.
Oregon State hires Trent Bray as football coach, replacing Jonathan Smith
By Nick Daschel, Oregonian 11/28/2023
Oregon State is again turning to one of its beloved former players to run the football program.
Trent Bray is set to become the Beavers next football coach, replacing Jonathan Smith, the school announced Tuesday. Bray, 41, is the 32nd head coach in Oregon State’s 127-year football history.
“After interviewing several qualified candidates, we realized our top choice, Trent, has already been a mainstay at the Valley Football Center and Reser Stadium,” OSU athletic director Scott Barnes said in a statement. “He’s been a part of Beaver Nation for a long time and (his) love for this place is real. The connection and trust he has built with our student athletes is unmatched. His energy and determination as head coach will be a catalyst for continued program success.”
A news conference introducing Bray will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday. It is not open to the public.
There was a coaching vacancy when Smith, OSU’s former star quarterback-turned-coach, resigned after six years Saturday to become coach at Michigan State. Like Smith in 2018, Bray is a first-time head coach.
Bray has deep ties to Oregon State. He played linebacker for the Beavers from 2002-05 and ranks No. 6 on the school’s all-time list with 337 career tackles. As a coach, Bray was an OSU graduate assistant in 2012, then linebackers coach in 2013-14 under coach Mike Riley.
Bray returned to Oregon State in 2018 to serve as Smith’s inside linebackers coach. Late in the 2021 season, defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar was fired and Bray replaced him on an interim basis. Before OSU’s 2021 bowl game, Bray was promoted to defensive coordinator, a role he continues to serve while also coaching linebackers.
Bray has also coached at Nebraska (2015-17) and Arizona State (2009-11). Bray’s father, Craig, is a former Oregon State defensive coordinator.
The high-energy Bray transformed a defense that had struggled for most of Smith’s first four years. In 2022, the Beavers had the Pac-12′s top defense, giving up 20 points and 332 yards per game. Despite losing three defensive backs to the NFL and both inside linebackers, OSU was among the conference’s top four in rushing and total defense this season.
Bray is enormously popular among the current players. Earlier this season, quarterback DJ Uiagalelei compared Bray to his former defensive coordinator Brent Venables while he was at Clemson.
“He reminds me a lot of how Coach V was and his demeanor. He’s out there, full speed with the players, yelling, running, into guys’ face, did something wrong he’s right there. Very active and I love that as a defensive coordinator,” Uiagalelei said. “Coach Bray is a smart-ass coach.”
Bray’s 2023 Oregon State defensive coordinator salary was $700,000, scheduled for an increase to $750,000 in 2024.
Smith was introduced as Michigan State’s coach Tuesday. Smith hired five assistants from his Oregon State 2023 staff in Jim Michalczik (offensive line), Keith Bhonapha (running backs), Brian Lindgren (offensive coordinator), Blue Adams (secondary) and Brian Wozniak (tight ends).
Aside from Bray, four current OSU assistants remain in Corvallis in Kefense Hynson (receivers), Legi Suiaunoa (defensive line), Anthony Perkins (corners) and Jake Cookus (special teams). It’s not known how many current OSU assistants will join Bray’s staff. All four have a contract that runs through February 2025.
PHOTO: Oregon State defensive coordinator Trent Bray becomes the 32nd football head coach in school history, replacing Jonathan Smith.Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
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Trent Bray gives Oregon State Beavers best chance at building on Jonathan Smith’s success
By Bill Oram, Oregonian, 11/28/2023
Trent Bray was recruited to Oregon State by Dennis Erickson, played for Mike Riley and coached with Jonathan Smith.
In fact, the only Beavers coach of the last quarter century Bray doesn’t have ties to is Gary Andersen.
Check, check, check and, uh, yeah, definitely check.
If there was one person who could reassure the fanbase and stanch the panic of Jonathan Smith’s clumsy exit to Michigan State, it’s Bray, who has built the Beavers into one of the Pac-12′s top defensive teams each of the last two seasons.
He represents continuity at a time of unprecedented disruption. And offers a through line to the great teams of Oregon State’s history.
I’ve written before about Bray’s childhood lugging cables on the sidelines of Washington State’s Martin Stadium. His dad, Craig, then a Cougars assistant and later Oregon State’s defensive coordinator for the Fiesta Bowl run, would host team dinners at the family home.
Trent Bray grew up in this world.
Earlier this week, I reached out to former Oregon State baseball coach Pat Casey. The three-time national champion has been in Corvallis for the better part of three decades.
He’s seen a lot of change and gotten to know a lot of coaches. Smith would drop by Casey’s house near campus and, over a beer, the two would talk about life and coaching and family. Casey, who first met Smith as a high schooler who was considering playing two sports at Oregon State, offered a healthy dose of perspective for Beavers fans.
“I’ve seen this happen before,” Casey said. “‘Hey, a guy’s gonna leave and it’s over. Shoot, when Dennis (Erickson) left, you know, the program was going to go right back to the 28 losing seasons.”
Didn’t happen that way.
This is, of course, a different situation. Oregon State wasn’t facing the college football equivalent of relegation when Erickson left. Nor was the athletic department bracing for a dramatic cratering of its operating budget.
Bray has his work cut out for him as a first-time head coach to steer this program through the fog. He is young, smart and high-energy. If he wasn’t going to be the head coach here, he would have been the most in-demand defensive coordinator in the country, with USC reportedly interested.
Maybe his inexperience makes him a riskier hire in Corvallis than reported candidates such as former Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst and ex-BYU and Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall — who both have OSU roots, as well.
But in this moment for Oregon State, experience might not be the key ingredient.
Smith pulled off a near miracle rebuilding the Beavers’ culture and imbuing the program with a winning mentality. No matter how many bruises he left behind with his heavily telegraphed departure barely 12 hours after getting hammered by Oregon, Smith’s six years in Corvallis go down as one of the most impressive coaching jobs we’ve seen anywhere.
Athletic director Scott Barnes understood the Beavers couldn’t lose that momentum. Starting over wasn’t an option. Not with Oregon State’s realignment fate still unsettled, next year’s schedule yet to be released and the transfer portal days away from opening.
Still, this is a big step up for Bray. He will inherit higher expectations than any first-year Oregon State coach — ever.
This is one of the most important hires the Beavers have ever had to make. Get it wrong, at this moment, and the Beavers are at risk of sliding out of college football relevance, with a much tougher climb back to the mountaintop.
The Beavers have reached bowl eligibility in each of their last three seasons, with a 10-win season sandwiched in the middle. The pledge of All-America running back Damien Martinez to return to Oregon State next season — despite opportunities to certainly earn more in NIL money elsewhere — sets an impressive standard for the Beavers.
DJ Uiagalelei has not announced what he intends to do next season. Nor has freshman quarterback Aidan Chiles, who before Smith left was seen as the quarterback of the future in Corvallis and still could be, if he doesn’t join Smith in East Lansing or jump elsewhere.
Bray is a well-liked leader among players. Earlier this season, Uiagalelei compared him to former Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables, who is now the head coach at Oklahoma.
“He’s out there full speed with the players, yelling, running, (getting) into guys’ face. (If you) did something wrong, he’s right there,” Uiagalelei said.
Players respect the hustle. And for whatever he lacks in experience, Bray will have a vast network of experienced coaches in his corner.
Erickson. Riley. His dad. Don’t be shocked if Riley finds his way back into the fold at OSU in some kind of advisory role, much as he did when Smith was in his first season.
Under different circumstances, the Beavers might have been smart to go for a bigger name or a more established hire. Someone like Chryst would have checked those boxes.
But the theme of the last several months in Corvallis, since the disintegration of the Pac-12, has been the fear of losing all that has been built.
Choosing Bray to succeed Smith gives Oregon State its best hope of keeping it going.
PHOTO Oregon State defensive coordinator Trent Bray as the Beavers hold fall football practice in Corvallis, Oregon on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
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Bill Oram: Trent Bray’s rise at Oregon State is a great story. Will this be a great defense?
By Bill Oram, Oregonian, 8/27/2022
Trent Bray’s first job on the sideline of big-time college football was a simple one: making sure Bill Doba’s head remained attached to his neck.
When Washington State’s defensive coordinator moved up and down the field at Martin Stadium, the 10-year-old son of the team’s secondary coach scampered to keep up, lugging the cables connected to Doba’s headset.
In the prehistoric days before cell phones and WiFi, Doba would lose his freedom to prowl the sideline if those wires ever got tangled.
Let out too much slack and Doba could trip.
If a cord ended up under the foot of, say, a 300-pound lineman, Doba’s head might jerk back and the headset could go flying.
An important job the kid had.
Almost as important as the one he has now.
But before Bray, now 39, became the defensive coordinator at Oregon State, he was a coach’s son growing up in Pullman. And if you’re wondering what the Beavers defense might look like now that Bray, initially tabbed as the interim last November, has had a full offseason to implement his system, you can learn a lot from those early days.
Bray grew up studying at the feet of his dad, Craig. On Thursday nights, the Bray home would fill with Washington State defensive backs and safeties. Craig Bray would man the barbecue while Trent and his brother Josh would hang out and play video games with the Cougars’ secondary.
As he got older, Trent started to understand why his dad hosted those evening gatherings.
“He actually did it for us more than he did for himself or the players,” Trent said.
That was also his first glimpse of the camaraderie of team sports.
“That had a big impact on me,” he said one week before the Beavers season opener. “Probably was a big part of why I wanted to get into coaching so much.”
That those first bread crumbs led him to become the defensive coordinator at Oregon State is all too fitting.
It’s possible that no one else on earth is more qualified to coach defense at OSU.
Bray was in high school when his dad joined his old boss, Dennis Erickson, as the defensive coordinator at OSU and became the architect of the defense that propelled the Beavers to the 2001 Fiesta Bowl.
When Trent Bray talks about simplifying the defense, as he often did after becoming the interim coordinator last year and again throughout training camp this year, that is a philosophy passed down from his dad.
“When we were good there at Oregon State, we were so simple it was ridiculous,” Craig Bray told me last week while on a walk near his home in southwestern Montana.
To the Brays, simple doesn’t mean unsophisticated.
“It’s not what you do,” Trent said, “it’s allowing your guys to do it.”
In 2002, Bray followed his dad to Corvallis to play linebacker and four years later left as the school’s sixth all-time leading tackler.
But he had long known his future was in coaching, and he went on to link up with his dad on Erickson’s staff Arizona State, then with Mike Riley at both Oregon State and Nebraska before returning for a second stint in Corvallis in 2018.
And while it’s easy to say Trent is just following in his dad’s footsteps, Craig said this about his son: “He had a knowledge way, way ahead of where I was at many stages of his coaching career.”
But if Trent ever does have a question about coaching defense, he can pick up the phone and call his dad.
And if Craig doesn’t answer, Trent can just amble outside and knock on the front door of another former OSU defensive coordinator, Mark Banker, who had the job when Trent was playing and now is his next-door neighbor in Corvallis.
But Trent said when he has questions for those two mentors, they are more philosophical rather than the nitty gritty of coaching.
“He doesn’t ask for a lot,” Craig said. “I think he’s pretty confident that he knows what he wants to do.”
And what that is will finally be on display when the Beavers open the season next Saturday against Boise State.
There is a lot of enthusiasm around the Beavers program and a desire to improve on last year’s seven-win mark. There has been open discussion of reaching the Pac-12 championship game, a sign of a program coming out of its rebuilding phase.
The Beavers’ ceiling might ultimately be determined by the offense and junior quarterback Chance Nolan’s improvement. But it’s the defense, with eight returning starters, that is the greatest source of optimism for the Beavers.
That defense will be tested early, first with the Broncos’ deceptive offense and then the explosive potential of Fresno State and quarterback Jake Haener.
Craig Bray will be watching, even though he has long been a wreck when his son’s teams play.
“I get really stressed out,” he said. “But I think I’ll be less stressed out because I know Trent’s in control.”
He’s come a long way from those days carrying cables for Bill Doba and getting his first taste of life on the sideline, watching coaches and the way they interacted with players.
“It was just a really unique perspective and something most people don’t experience,” he said.
In that way, his new job is the same. Only now he’s the one wearing the headset.
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