Willie Fritz doesn’t mind being called old-fashioned. He built a reputation in college football as a program builder and he enjoyed constructing his roster in the traditional sense. Fritz, 65, wasn’t a stranger to inheriting programs that needed a rebuild. But, like everyone else over the last few years, he’s had to learn to use different building materials.
Fritz followed a similar model when he took over at Blinn Junior College or Central Missouri or Sam Houston State or Tulane. Retain kids, develop them, and reap the reward for that hard work by Year 3, sometimes even sooner. Like Novocain, it always worked if given time.