Recruiting, hiring staff and growing the fan base are just some of the things on Molnar's plate.
UMass football coach Charley Molnar doesn't have much down time as he tries to build an FBS program.AMHERST – Charley Molnar has been forced to get his runs in either early in the morning before the sun shines its brilliance on the valley or late at night, which poses problems of its own.
The new football coach for the University of Massachusetts spends his days and early evenings putting together a staff, talking with and evaluating the returning players, recruiting new ones, marketing the program and giving his input on the plans for construction at the football stadium.
That’s when he’s not shopping for food and doing his laundry at the hotel.
Molnar barely has two minutes to himself, which is surely a desirable situation for a man with eight children.
Despite all that, the evidence is easy to see on the man’s face. Charley Molnar could not be happier.
“Everything so far has been a blast. It’s been really exciting and every day has been great,” Molnar said Tuesday from the team’s offices on University Drive. “The people I’ve met have been gracious. Everyone has welcomed me. Even going out to eat in town or going to the grocery store or almost everywhere I’ve gone, somebody has come up to me and congratulated me and wished me luck and I really am so humbled over that whole experience and hope it never ends.”
Hired a little over three weeks ago to guide the Minutemen into the Football Bowl Subdivision, Molnar has fully embraced his first head-coaching job, one that comes with a lot more attached than most.
For now, Molnar’s running on campus to familiarize himself with the buildings and their names. On New Year’s Eve, he drove around the valley for two hours to learn more about the place his family will call home.
Three days into the new year and 25 since he was hired, Molnar said he hasn’t come across any problems that couldn’t be solved.
“There’s been no surprises,” Molnar said. “There’s not an occurrence that I haven’t seen multiple times in my 28 years of coaching.”
His staff is coming together, many already at work on the road or in the office, though Molnar said he’s not ready to announce them until all contracts have been signed.
Andrew Dees, the only coach left from the staff of former coach Kevin Morris, is still working at UMass handling many of the recruiting issues that have come up during the transition of staffs.
“I have almost a full staff committed to come to UMass and a number of guys are en route,” Molnar said. “We’ll have a large number of guys recruiting for us as we head out recruiting at the end of this week.”
While high school recruits can’t sign a National Letter of Intent until Feb. 1, junior college and FBS transfers can, but Molnar said there have not been any as of yet.
The number of recruits he can bring in will depend on what he has returning. Molnar said he has addressed the team as a group and has met with every player individually. He said no scholarship player has asked to transfer, but will not know exactly how many are returning until final grades are out.
In regard to on-the-field matters, Molnar said UMass will have an offensive coordinator, but the play calling will be done by Molnar.
“I’m interested in hiring an offensive coordinator that will run the meetings when I’m not in there, someone that can keep the flow of progress moving forward when I have to tend to other issues,” Molnar said. “There’s 100 players on the roster and there are a myriad of responsibilities outside of just strategizing offense on a day-to-day basis. When those events occur, I like to know that when I walk out of that door, somebody is going to lead the offensive coaches through that half-hour, hour or morning when I’m not in there.
“There will be someone that has that title, but at the end of the day I’ll run the offense, I’ll manage the offense and I’ll call the plays.”
His toughest assignment may be growing the UMass fan base. Molnar said he wants to get the students from the other campuses in the UMass system to become fans of the Minutemen, and he wants to draw in the large number of alumni in Eastern Massachusetts while maintaining the fans in Western Mass.
“Just because we’re not playing our games on campus doesn’t mean we’re going to ignore our fans and constituents that are on this side of the state that have been faithful to us,” Molnar said.
Of course, the best way to grow the fan base is to win games, but he’s eight months away from his first test. Until then, Molnar intends to work night and day to bring the Minutemen up to FBS speed as quickly as possible.
“That’s why this job has been so much fun to me, is to be involved in so many facets of the program,” Molnar said. “I am really really excited to be a part of growing our fan base. I think that’s a great challenge and something with which we can see tangible results in a short period of time.”