Buck's Ballpark: Sallisaw the latest challenge for coach - and turnaround specialist - Brandon Tyler
He’s turned around two Sequoyah County football programs, taking both schools to state championship games.
Brandon Tyler is now seeking to make it 3-for-3 by taking on another school in Sequoyah County seeking a return to glory - not to mention getting in the win column after not doing so all of 2022.
After taking Gore - his alma mater - to the Class A championship game a season ago, Tyler decided to take on a new challenge. He was named the new coach at Class 4A Sallisaw, and is determined to revitalize the Black Diamonds in similar fashion to what he did with Gore, and before that with Vian.
But while he may be taking a big jump in classification, Tyler is approaching his new role as if he was still coaching at the Class A level, or in 2A before that with Vian.
“It’s different, it’s just a lot more kids,” Tyler said. “You know, kids are still kids and football is about two things, it’s about blocking and tackling, so we’ve just got to be fundamentally sound. It’s just a lot more kids doing it, and getting out there and having a good time.”
Not to mention getting at least a win.
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Sallisaw has fallen on hard times recently, and the Diamonds bottomed out last season with a 0-10 finish. Perhaps unfathomable for a program that won back-to-back state titles in 1980-81 and went to back-to-back 4A title games in 2000-01, as well as producing players like Steve Davis - who quarterbacked the University of Oklahoma to back-to-back national titles in 1974-75 - and Derek Fine, who was part of a BCS bowl champion playing tight end at Kansas and later saw playing time in the National Football League.
But the Black Diamonds have won just one playoff game over the past decade, and have won a total of just one game over the past two seasons.
“This place has always been a tradition-rich football town, and that’s another thing I wanted to get back over here, that it’s a football town,” Tyler said. “As a head coach, I don’t have very many more years to do this, but it’s always been a goal of mine to coach here and coach at this level. It just finally worked out for that opportunity to come along.”
Plus, Tyler has had prior experience reviving down-and-out programs.
In 2001, he arrived at Vian as an assistant looking to do his part in helping turn around a Wolverines’ program that went winless the season before.
The team improved significantly after that, and in 2004, Tyler was promoted to head coach. He led Vian to 10 wins that season, a semifinal appearance the following season and a 2A state title game berth in 2006, although the Wolverines fell one point short, losing to Oklahoma City Millwood.
Tyler went on to lead Vian for 12 seasons before taking an assistant coaching job for one season at Van Buren, Ark. He returned to Sequoyah County in 2017 to take over at Gore, which had gone through several coaches and not very many wins, including an 0-10 season in 2014.
But Tyler won eight games his first season at his alma mater, nine the following year and 10 in 2019. Last season, the Pirates went 14-1 and made it to their first-ever title game, but in a matchup between undefeated teams, Gore came up short against Fairview.
Now, Tyler becomes the Black Diamonds’ third coach in the past three seasons. Some of his new players were actually hoping he was going to get the job before the announcement was officially made.
“Ever since I found out we were going to end up having a new head coach, I was hoping that Coach Tyler would be the one to land the job and when I found out (he did), I was super excited and very pleased,” senior running back Cole Stephens said.
“It’s always a good thing when you can get a coach that’s proven he can turn around a program, and I believe he’s going to do the same thing here at Sallisaw.”
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Tyler wanted to set the tone right away in his first meeting with his players.
“I just said things are going to change,” he said. “We’re going to be more disciplined, we’ll run the football, we’ll be more tough mentally. We’ve got to get stronger in the weight room.
“We just talked about all those things and all those kids have taken me in since day one and I appreciate that, because sometimes you go in and the senior kids, especially being the third coach in three years, but again they’ve taken me in and they’ve worked hard, they’re doing everything I’ve asked them to do and I think we’re going to have a successful year because of that.”
But can that successful year include a win or two? The players believe once they can get that elusive win, it will produce a snowball effect and more victories can follow.
“He’s really big on us believing in us, and not worrying about what anybody outside of us thinks,” senior tight end/linebacker Braxton Lamb said. “If we believe in ourselves, and we get a couple of wins and we start rolling, then we can make a run and go deep.
“As much as it sounds like a cliche, it’s a lot about discipline. If we can discipline ourselves, hold ourselves accountable, then we can count on each other on Friday nights. If we can have some good chemistry, then we can just get rolling and start winning some ballgames. … With Coach Tyler’s resume, he knows how to win, so he can help us out to get that first one and as soon as we do, we can take it from there and get rolling like I said.”
The schedule will favor Sallisaw this season. The Black Diamonds have six home games, and will leave Sequoyah County only three times.
But Tyler knows that to have a degree of success, the Diamonds will have to survive District 4A-4, arguably the toughest league in the classification. It starts with Poteau, a state champion in 2019 and a state semifinalist each of the past two seasons.
Poteau’s coach is Greg Werner, someone Tyler knows very well. Werner was the head coach at Van Buren during Tyler’s lone season as an assistant there, and Tyler admires how Werner has built the Pirates into one of the state’s best teams year in and year out.
“(Werner’s done it by) just being physically tough; he’s got those kids playing so physical,” Tyler said. “Greg’s done a tremendous job and is a great friend of mine and respected the work that he’s done.
“I learned a lot from him when I was at Van Buren the year under him, so again, we just want to try to get our program back to that level, to that level where Poteau’s at, going to the semis and finals year in and year out, so that’s kind of been our goal and that’s what we’re trying to reach.”
But Poteau is far from the only imposing team in the district. There’s also other tradition-rich schools like Broken Bow, Hilldale and Ada.
Then there’s Stigler, the opponent in Tyler’s Black Diamond debut Friday night at Sallisaw’s Perry F. Lattimore Stadium. The 3A Panthers have been a thorn in the Diamonds’ side in recent years, having won the past six ballgames between the two and seven of the past eight.
Again, though, it’s all about getting that breakthrough win - whenever that might be - and taking it and building momentum from there.
“The first (expectation) is obviously winning one ballgame and just seeing where that leads to; they’ve been down for so long, so we’ve just got to stay healthy and then go compete,” Tyler said. “Don’t worry about the scoreboard, just go compete every Friday night and see where we’re at, and give ourselves a chance to win a ballgame.”
And once that happens, others may follow.
“I’m hoping it’s just like a domino effect; one win after another, and it leads to a playoff berth and anything can happen in the playoffs, you never know,” Stephens said.
