New Saint Vincent football coach Casey Goff comfortable with putting life into struggling programs
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Casey Goff grew up the youngest of three brothers, so it would have been natural for him to try to keep up with the other two.
In actuality, Goff, the new football coach at Saint Vincent, said he didn’t even try. Even the younger of his two older siblings was five years Goff’s senior, so he said he resigned himself to being on the wrong end of any type of physical contest. During games of “living room football,” he was the one who wound up getting tackled into the furniture.
So Goff is no stranger to being in difficult situations. That should make him well suited for trying to elevate the Bearcats from cellar dweller to Presidents’ Athletic Conference contender.
Success has been fleeting for Saint Vincent since it reinstated its football program for the 2007 season, but the Bearcats appeared to be heading in the right direction in recent years. After winning six games combined from 2017-19, they had back-to-back five-win seasons in 2021 and ’22, even qualifying for an ECAC Bowl in 2021.
But the program regressed the past two seasons, posting three wins in 2023 and only one last fall.
“As a head coach, this is what I’m used to: stepping into programs that have kind of struggled and do everything I can to help turn them around,” said Goff, who has coached mostly at the college level since he got into the profession almost 25 years ago. “That’s what I know, so I am comfortable with this position.”
Before coming to Saint Vincent, Goff spent seven seasons at The College of New Jersey, which, like SVC, had been mired in losing. In 2023, Goff’s last year at the helm of TCNJ, the team went 5-5, which was its best record in 11 years. (Building on Goff’s foundation, TCNJ went 6-4 this past season.)
Goff’s teams produced 12 all-conference players, and he increased the program’s roster size from 75 to more than 100.
The challenge of steering the Bearcats in the right direction is one of the factors that drew Goff to Unity Township. Plus, he knew what kind of an environment Saint Vincent had to offer from his days as an assistant at W&J (2007-09).
“In my time at W&J, I always thought, hey, (Saint Vincent) is a pretty cool place where I think you can win ballgames,” Goff said. “Beautiful campus, having the Benedictine background, having the Catholic background (and) being located in Western Pa. … you’re right in with some of the best (high school) football in the country.
“You could just sense immediately that there’s a ‘want’ to win. There’s an investment there, and I think that’s what every coach wants. I’m going to invest my time, (so) I want to be in a place that’s going to invest in me and the program, and I think that’s what Saint Vincent is.”
The WPIAL, Goff said, will play a pivotal role in how he builds his program. He wants to assemble a coaching staff that has familiarity with the district, and he intends to give each assistant a piece of the WPIAL from which to recruit.
He also wants to recruit Catholic schools “within three hours of campus,” knowing that the college’s foundational beliefs would be a strong selling point.
“It’s going to be WPIAL first, Catholic schools then we’ll kind of branch out,” he said.
While Goff gets his staff in place, he has started working with the returning players. Shortly after his hire, he met with them to outline what would be expected in terms of offseason training. He also has to start putting together his incoming class via recruiting and delving into the transfer portal.
Goff said he wants to establish a culture first then go about implementing his system. Once he does get down to X’s and O’s, his players can expect an emphasis on defense.
As a player, Goff was a fullback and inside linebacker in high school in Montrose, Pa., before converting to defensive lineman at Susquehanna University. And even though he played on both sides of the ball, Goff said — without hesitation — he is a defensive guy at heart.
“I think defense is where you can get real creative and create a lot of issues,” he said. “That’s still the winning formula when it comes to football. I know people are always thinking points, points, points, and you feel like everybody is offensive minded. But you’ve still got to be out there playing great defense to be competitive.
“But, obviously, we want to put up points as well. We want to be balanced and not necessarily have to lean on one side or the other.”
Though Goff has experience coaching in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, he downplayed how much that might help him at Saint Vincent, citing the extensive changes the conference has undergone in the past 15 years.
Former powerhouse Thomas More bolted the conference for NCAA Division II in 2018. New teams, such as Case Western Reserve and Hiram, have joined, and with the emergence of Grove City and Westminster, parity in the conference, Goff said, is greater than ever.
He is confident Saint Vincent can be part of that parity. Goff wouldn’t speculate how long that might take but assured the Saint Vincent community it would happen.
“I think we’ve got to look at retention. That’s going to be a big portion … making sure we bring in kids who fit and stay,” he said. “I think also making sure that we see development in kids. I think that’s kind of a lost art. When a kid comes in as a freshman, he better be better as a sophomore … and he needs to be playing his best football as a senior.
“And, obviously, we want to win.”