Wheeler: Ryan Beard promotion to Missouri State head football coach allows deserved continuity

Wyatt D. Wheeler, Springfield News-Leader

December 16, 2022 at 9:18 AM·5 min read

Even though Bobby Petrino won't be the head coach anymore, his direction and plan will be felt by the Missouri State football program for years to come.

That became evident when Missouri State announced defensive coordinator Ryan Beard would be promoted to become the team's next head coach.

Petrino, who was announced as the new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks head coach at UNLV, helped lay a foundation at Missouri State with those who remain. The majority of the same staff will likely continue to work under Beard's leadership and it earned the right to continue to keep building.

It's almost as if it was planned all along as Petrino ventures off and Beard, the former head coach's son-in-law, has the opportunity to become a head coach while Nick Petrino, Bobby's son, can remain as the team's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the opportunity to be the team's play-caller.

More:Missouri State football promotes Ryan Beard to head coach following Bobby Petrino's departure

Missouri State football defensive coordinator Ryan Beard speaks during media day at Plaster Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021.

Beard became the obvious candidate to step into the boss' shoes with the work ethic shown in recent years, the contagious energy that the team feeds off of and the overwhelming amount of love players on the team have shown for him since the time he stepped foot in Springfield.

The blueprint is already there to continue to build the program from the bottom when the staff took over a 1-10 program in 2019 to one that has been to a pair of postseason appearances since. Even after Petrino's departure, the staff continued to recruit as normal while knowing an internal promotion was coming.

The plan appeared to have its flaws during the 2022 season in which the Bears took a step back from the two postseason appearances while finishing 5-6. A heavy attack in the transfer portal allowed the Bears to turn into a winner quickly but the model didn't prove to be sustainable as it finished with disappointing results when it had championship expectations.

More:5 things to know about new Missouri State football head coach Ryan Beard

A deeper look at the roster shows that the Bears are starting to build their program into something that is more ideal. More than half of last season's roster was built with redshirt sophomores or younger and it will start to resemble one that coaches prefer while developing players from within instead of having to go to the portal at every position.

Make no mistake, the Bears are going to still use the transfer portal but fans will hope it will be used to upgrade at skill positions and find the diamonds in the rough that are out there. If a player with the skills like Jason Shelley, Ty Scott, Montrae Braswell or others becomes available, no one would blame the Bears for jumping right on it.

You also take a look at what the Bears have coming in with Wednesday's December signing day fast approaching. The players the team, as of now, still has committed are at the level of those that Missouri State has failed to attract before. In the past, players like Reeds Spring's Caden Wiest, Glendale's Cole Feuerbacher and Kickapoo's Andrew Link are the types that would go to a South Dakota State or a Group of 5 school instead of staying home.

Missouri State Bears Defensive Coordinator Ryan Beard celebrates with the team after a touchdown as the Bears took on the Western Illinois Leathernecks at Plaster Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022.

Instead, those players are talking about how much they want to be the players to help lead the Bears further than they've ever gone before. As Feuerbacher said when he committed on Monday, he never gave Missouri State a thought while growing up until these last few years when the Bears finally felt relevant. As one of the more talented quarterbacks to come through the area in recent years, he now has pride in the program and wants to be a part of taking it to new heights.

Nearly all of these players, whether they're just now graduating, committed or are the young players coming up through the program, have voiced the same thing since Petrino was announced as UNLV's offensive coordinator — they wanted Beard to get the promotion and be the man in charge.

Beard has earned it. He's been a key ingredient in turning the Bears into a relevant program in recent years. In his first year as the Bears' defensive coordinator, he took one of the worst defenses in college football and turned it into the reason they won games while winning a share of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, the program's first since 1990.

Players love him. Everyone he's interacted with in the community has seemed to love him, too. He comes across as the type of person parents would want to see their student-athletes play for. The generational gap between coach and player will be unlike what the Bears have had in the program before as he's just 33 years old.

Perhaps most importantly, Beard allows the Bears to stick to a plan they've been executing for the last three seasons. That plan didn't finish with Petrino hopping on a plane and flying to Las Vegas.

There was never a reason to consider starting this program from scratch with a different regime. Moving forward with a staff that's helped bring in one of the best stretches in Missouri State football history was the obvious move.

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State naming Ryan Beard head coach makes sense for Bears

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