Provo • It started in the waiting area of an In-N-Out Burger right off the highway in Azusa, Calif.
Every Sunday at 10 a.m., the coaches of the Division-III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference would gather, as bleary eyed workers flipped burgers. The meetings were morning-long gripe sessions fueled by cheeseburgers, soda and overworked assistants still mad about Saturday night’s results.
It was also the time to exchange game tape — if you were lucky enough to make a deal.
Maybe Pomona’s coaches would ask for the VHS tapes from the rest of the conference. Then maybe Claremont’s coaches would shoot a barb from across the table about some no-call from the night before. Egos would be bruised, football coaches would work themselves into a frenzy until they refused to hand over the film.
“All these big-time coaches don’t understand how things [in Division-III] work,” said Kevin Clune, now the linebackers coach at BYU. “There were different cliques in the SCIAC — where these guys would help those guys, these guys wouldn’t help these guys. It is small college stuff that nobody sees.”
It was during these raucous Sunday mornings that a young Dave Aranda met Clune and Ed Lamb. Aranda was coaching at Cal Lutheran, Lamb was at the Redlands and Clune was at Occidental. The three made a pact to share their tape, avoiding any drama that might pop up around them.
At the time, none of them realized how their careers would intertwine over the next two decades, weaving in-and-out of each other’s coaching lives from Utah to California to Texas.
This week, that journey will add another chapter as Aranda, now Baylor’s head coach, will lead his No. 9 Bears into Provo to face Lamb and Clune’s BYU team. It will be on the biggest stage of college football — prime time on ESPN with two ranked teams. A long way away from an In-N-Out chaos in the middle of nowhere.
“We never even thought about working big-time college football,” said Lamb, now BYU’s special teams coordinator. “One of the things coaching small college football is that it teaches you it is not about how much money you make or whether the game is on TV. It is about the players and the game of football. And to find a kinship in somebody who appreciates that part of the game is special.”
The friendship between the three grew beyond their initial pact. Outside of the In-N-Out trips, they would visit each other and spend days talking about football schemes.
They knew it would be temporary, but the bond was formed.
They left the SCIAC for bigger programs in the early 2000s. Aranda took a job at Texas Tech after four years in the league. Lamb ventured off to BYU as a graduate assistant. Clune had to leave Occidental for Utah as a graduate assistant.
But each of them knew if the opportunity arose, they would jump at the prospect of working together.
Eight years later, Lamb got an unexpected promotion to be the head coach at Southern Utah. He called Aranda to join his skeleton staff.
“Aranda was my first call,” Lamb said, who made Aranda his defensive coordinator. “We started building that program.”
Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Southern Utah Thunderbirds defensive lineman Keyan Norman (54) hands over the rivalry trophy between the two teams in celebration of their win to Southern Utah Thunderbirds head coach Ed Lamb. Southern Utah University defeated Weber State University 44-0, October 2, 2015 at Stewart Stadium in Ogden.
This, too, would be temporary. Aranda left for Hawaii after two months on the job, for a bigger program and more pay.
But Lamb gave Aranda the steppingstone he needed. For Aranda, Southern Utah was his first time being a coordinator at a Division-I program. He was previously at Delta State, a small school Mississippi.
Once he took the job with Hawaii, he put his name on the map as one of the best defensive coordinators in the sport. In 2010, his defense improved from the 90th in the country to 58th. It would be the highest-ranked defense Hawaii had in the decade.
As for Clune, he would wind up at Utah State. Eventually, Arenda joined Clune on the staff as the defensive coordinator in 2012 after a stint at Hawaii. The Aggies went 11-2 and boasted the No. 27 ranked defense in the nation.
“I’m close with Clune,” Aranda said. “I worked for Ed. We are all a close group.”
Since then, Aranda has reached the top of the profession, winning a Big 12 championship and a Sugar Bowl at Baylor. Lamb and Clune are part of BYU’s staff that will soon join the Big 12.
But this Saturday, all three will be on the field together once again in what may be the biggest game in the Independence era for BYU.
Lamb said he has not yet talked to Aranda this week.
But before the game, all three men will meet at midfield — talking, without a doubt, about how different a 63,000-capacity stadium is from those mornings at In-N-Out.
