New Tulsa Coach Tre Lamb Wants To 'Inject Joy And Fun' Back Into Program

The University of Tulsa has introduced Tre Lamb as its new head football coach Tuesday at the ONEOK Club at Chapman Stadium. At 35, Lamb brings a reputation for transforming struggling programs and infusing energy into his teams.

What did he say

"I want to inject joy and fun back into our program. I think our players right now, are a little beaten down, and they've lost a couple of years in a row, like I told them yesterday, like, you got into this sport because you wanted to have fun. I want you to enjoy coming to work. I want you to enjoy the environment that we're gonna create on a daily basis. Does that mean it's all gonna be sunshine and rainbows and it's all just happy go lucky country club? Heck no. We're gonna keep them and hold them accountable. We're gonna do things the right way and we're gonna do things that creates winning, but at the same time, man, your 10 year old self playing football in the backyard is what I wanna see. I wanna see you guys have fun again and we're gonna do that.

Building a Program

"Recruit, develop, and retain, in that order: we got to recruit talent, we got to develop talent, we got to retain talent. Bottom line, we can talk about all the ways to do it. We got we're not gonna make excuses, okay? We're not gonna make money excuses, financial excuses. We've been given what we've been given and we've been given plenty, plenty to be successful in this league. I will get that done without making excuses."

Approach Towards Building A Staff

"My staff, okay, I've got a great plan there. I'm going to hire at least one guy on my staff that's been a group of five head coach that I can lean on. I'm going to hire at least six to seven guys who have experienced recruiting Texas and Oklahoma. It is important that we take care of Oklahoma first. I wanna get the best players in this city, not just the average ones. I wanna make sure we're taking care of that. We could we could take a van or a bus and drive four hours around Tulsa and have the greatest team in the league. I believe that. One of the reasons I took this job, we can go to Dallas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, east Texas, and we could have a great football team. and we're gonna do that, and I'm gonna recruit coaches that can recruit those areas. I also have five coaches that I'm gonna hire, that have American Athletic Conference experience and recent experience. I think that's important. This is a tough league to defend; you got a lot of different offenses with triple option, spread, air raid, a lot of different styles of defense. Coaching matters and obviously recruiting matters, but coaching still matters. We gotta make sure we hire the right guys in the building and get them in the right spots. That's important."

Vision For Tulsa Football

"What's my vision? OK how are we gonna get this done? You know number one like Justin (Justin Moore Tulsa Athletic Director) said, I want to win fast, okay? This is not a complete rebuild. I firmly believe we can come in here year one and make it to a bowl game. That's the expectation. And in today's today's world of college football, we're being given the resources we're we've been given, there's no reason this should take three years like it used to. It's not, that's not the process. It's not how this is gonna work. Bowl games. That's going to be an expectation. One of the reasons I took this job. I want to coach in bowl games. I want our players to play in bowl games. It's important to me. That should be an expectation on a yearly basis, every year, American Conference championships, one of the greatest conferences in all the college football. The greatest group of five conference in the country. The expectations to play and compete in that championship game on a consistent basis and compete for a spot in the college football playoff. Sounds and looks crazy. You may call me crazy, but that's not far fetched. I believe that can be done at Tulsa. I believe that with my whole heart, I'm not just giving you some coach speak, it is very possible."