Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford got much more out of 2022 championship season than a ring

When Fresno State coach Jeff Tedford stepped away from a sport and a job that he loved and had consumed his life for decades, going back to his days as a high school quarterback puking his anxiety and nerves into a trash can before games, a break was needed. He knew it, He admitted it. The hours. The stress. It all caught up to him in 2019. He was having heart-related health issues for a second time and was headed for surgery, a cardiac ablation.

But after that, there was a plan.

Tedford wanted to spend time with his family, to live life. A river cruise had captured his attention late one night watching TV. It was on his to-do list, and when talking about it one day over lunch a few weeks after returning home from the hospital following the procedure he had a smile on his face the whole time.

But then COVID hit, and before long, feeling better physically and mentally, Tedford was itching to get back into the game he had given so much to for so long and jumped back in. He returned to Fresno State in 2022, and the Bulldogs won a second Mountain West Conference championship in his four seasons at his alma mater. But the questions lingered. Had he had enough time away? Had he learned to deal with the stresses? How was his health?

In that time away and through a season in which the Bulldogs became the first team in history to finish 10-4 after a 1-4 start, though, Tedford also found that life and football could in fact coexist.

It is a relief. “Yes, it is,” he said Thursday during Mountain West Conference media days. “There’s no question. I feel much more at ease with the balance of life and football.”

That order is telling: Life, then football.

He took that river cruise with his wife, Donna, just this month, and it was just different from past years and vacations past when he struggled just to try and separate the two.

Tedford on balance of life, football

“I’m much happier as coach now than I’ve ever been,” said Tedford, who is 61 and entering his 16th season as a head coach. “Being away and thinking that I’m never going to do it again, I appreciate it much more. I love going to work. I love being around the players. I could coach for another 10 years. I really feel that way. I’m so energized right now. I can’t wait to get back to work. I can’t wait to do this.

“I’m not sure that was what it was five or 10 years ago. I think it was, ‘Oh, here we go with the grind again.’ Well, I don’t look at it that way anymore. That time off gave me time to reflect on all the cool things about what we do - the kids, the competition, the coaching staff, the strategy. I think I really do have a different mindset. Not that I work any less or anything, because I still do all that stuff, I just do it through a different lens.”

On his vacation, Tedford kept his phone stowed away in a drawer. He soaked up the tour. Tedford and his wife spent a day in Amsterdam, traveled through Germany and France. They visited castles, toured windmills. It was everything that he had talked about doing. “My wife and sons (Taylor and Quinn) have sacrificed a lot,” an emotional Tedford said, the day he stepped down, “and now it’s time to live.”

The phone made an appearance just once a day.

“I think that’s the pleasant epiphany that has come with this second go-round,” athletics director Terry Tumey said. “Quite honestly you just hope that you continue to see it grow and grow and grow as the year goes on and as his career goes on.”

Tedford, even when on previous vacations, had never really disengaged. There was too much to do, too little time, and it’s college football. Things inevitably would come up.

Tedford and the Bulldogs set sights on 2023

“I would take my job with me,” he said. “I’d be on vacation just scripting and doing all these analyses on how many 3rd-and-5s do we need to practice over camp.

“I did not do that. I’ve kind of learned to disconnect. What I found was that if you check things every morning, then you’re OK. Over there, you have to check at night because you’re so far ahead. But at 6 o’clock at night I’d check to see what was going on and then I’d be good the rest of the day.”

Tedford soon enough will be back in it, with a team that was picked to finish third in the Mountain West in a preseason poll and very well could contend for back-to-back conference championships.

The last team in the Mountain West to win two it years in a row was San Diego State in 2015 and ‘16. But it would not be a surprise if the Bulldogs pulled it off, with a coach who before leading a team to 10 wins after a 1-4 start last season had taken a squad that had finished 1-11 the year before he arrived and won 10 or more games in his first two seasons. That, also, had not happened in FBS history.

“I think my attitude is much more positive about how I approach things. I feel much more relaxed, coaching things,” Tedford said, before pausing briefly.

“You know, it’s an interesting dynamic, of thinking that you’re never ever going to do something ever again, and then you have an opportunity to do it again.”