Western Carolina football is surging in Kerwin Bell's first season at the helm

CULLOWHEE – The Western Carolina football team is on its longest Southern Conference winning streak in six years.

First-year Catamounts coach Kerwin Bell says it all comes down to trust.

After beginning the year 0-6, Western Carolina has won three consecutive SoCon games. WCU won at The Citadel, 45-31, then blasted Wofford 41-21 on the road before winning a dramatic 43-42 decision against Furman in Cullowhee on Saturday afternoon. WCU trailed 42-31 entering the fourth quarter but scored twice to pull out the victory. The winning score came when quarterback Rogan Wells passed to Kenny Benjamin for an 85-yard touchdown.

Bell was hired in late April after the Catamounts had finished their spring season at 1-8. The school decided to part ways with long-time coach Mark Spier. Bell came to Cullowhee after successful stints at Jacksonville and Valdosta State. He led Valdosta to the Division II national championship in 2018 as the Blazers went 14-0 and led the nation in scoring with 52 points per game.

He took over a WCU program that hadn’t had a winning season since 2017 and had gone 7-25 in the previous three years, including 4-18 against SoCon opponents.

Adding to his challenge was that there was no spring football during which Bell could install his style and system. And 20 players departed during the transition from Spier to Bell.

Bell knew he had to bring in some new players and fast.

Why Kerwin Bell brought new faces into the WCU football program

“We lost about 20 players in the transition. Some had already decided not to come back, some decided to transfer and some just decided not to play anymore,” Bell said. “We had to get some players in the program right away just to get through the fall season.

“We identified some holes that we needed to fix immediately, and one was at quarterback. And I was able to get Rogan Wells to transfer in from Valdosta State. We also needed more speed on defense, so we tried to get some players to come into the program who could help us in that area.”

The Catamounts brought in about 20 transfers and 20 freshmen to bolster the roster for the 2021 season.

“That’s a lot of new guys to bring into the program, and the only way you get everyone to trust each other is to win ballgames,” said Bell. “We put a lot of emphasis on our first game at home with Eastern Kentucky. We wanted to win that one so badly to get everyone on the same page.”

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The Catamounts put a great effort together in that opening game but fell short, 31-28. After a 76-0 loss at No. 2 Oklahoma, WCU went on to lose its next four games, three in league play, to stand at 0-6.

“I just preached to our guys that they needed to trust each other and have confidence in their teammates,” said Bell.

“This was especially important on defense. Our effort was always good, but too many times our guys on defense would try to make a spectacular play by themselves instead of letting their teammate make the play. We would be out of position, and the (opposing) offense would take advantage of that aggressiveness.

“Finally, we started trusting each other. ... When a play was needed to be made by someone in your area, they would make the play. Once we started trusting each other, that’s when the winning started. We all trust each other. 'If I don’t make the play, someone else is going to make the play.'”

Getting a little healthier is helping as well.

“At one time we had eight of our top 10 offensive lineman out due to injury,” Bell said. “That hurt us a bit on offense, but once we got some of those guys back on the field we got better.”

'It was a little iffy at first'

Senior linebacker Trevor Childers has seen a lot during his five-year career with the Catamounts. During his freshman season, WCU was ranked in the FCS Coaches Poll for part of the season before finishing with a 7-5 record. He has then been a part of the program that played through a pandemic last year and saw the coach that recruited him let go before the end of the spring season in 2021.

He admits all the changes were tough.

“We were a little hesitant at first with the new staff," Childers said. "You hate to see the coaches who recruited you let go, but you could tell with Coach Bell’s first speech to us that things were headed in a new direction. It was a little iffy at first to try and mesh with all the new guys and a new scheme.”

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Childers believes the Catamounts were hurt early by playing a spring season and not having a lot of time to put in Bell’s schemes.

“We had a big learning curve," he said. "We were playing a new scheme that we had just put in in the summer. Usually you have spring practice, a summer camp and then preseason camp. But for us, we just had the preseason to get ready for the year. We were playing teams that had their systems in for a long time."

Childers agreed that things began to click for the defense after the players heeded Bell's advice to trust each other.

“The last three weeks have showed us that if we just trust each other and have trust in our teammates, we will start finding ways to win," he said. “And that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Wells was among the first newcomers to join the program, and he felt that the returning players meshed well with the new players.

“It was tough not to have a spring practice and not to have much time to prepare for the season but the returnees welcomed the new guys and we got on the same page pretty quickly,” Wells said. “I think everyone liked what the new coaching staff was teaching and what they were trying to do to build a good program."

And trust was important as well.

“Football is the ultimate team game. You have to trust your teammates that everyone will do their job to have success,” said Wells. “It took a few games to get everyone together but we all really trust each other now and I think the results speak for themselves.”

What the progress in 2021 means to the future of WCU football

Much has been made of the transfer portal in college athletics. It’s a chance for programs to get experienced players to fill a gap without having to depend on incoming recruits. Bell brought in about 20 transfers for his first season at WCU.

“You’ve got to change with the times in college football, and the transfer portal is there and there may be times we need to use it,” Bell said. “But it’s not something we’re going to depend on to build this program.

"We believe when you get skill players when they’re freshmen and they want to be developed, you can turn them into good college football players. We will use the portal from time to time if we see a need in an area to make our team better. But the way I want to build the program is by developing players.”

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The Catamounts don’t have a chance to win the Southern Conference title, but they could have a lot to say about who does. They finish the season by playing the top teams in the conference. League-leader ETSU visits Cullowhee at 2 p.m. Saturday, and the Catamounts finish the season at second-place VMI on Nov. 20.

“It’s exciting to know that we will have a say-so on who wins the championship this year,” Bell said. “We want to have a great finish to this season and then to start going after championships in the future for Western Carolina.”

Wells agrees with his coach.

“It’s the last two games of my career and I’d really like to go out with wins,” Wells said. “We’re facing a really good ETSU team on Saturday but we’re looking forward to playing at home and to keep building on what we’ve accomplished the past few weeks.”