Football
| Marty Fine | ||
 |
Title | Head Football Coach |
| mfine@bryant.edu | ||
| Phone | 401.232.6399 | |
Under the direction of head coach Marty Fine, the Bryant University football team has made tremendous leaps in only a short time. Fine enters his fifth season at Bryant in the fall of 2008 after guiding the Bulldogs to back-to-back conference championships and NCAA playoff appearances in 2006 and 2007.
The 2007 season saw the Bulldogs open the year with a school record seven consecutive wins. Picked to finish fourth in the preseason coaches' poll, the Bulldogs went 8-1 in the Northeast-10 Conference to capture the outright league title. Among the victories was a 24-17 win at C.W. Post and a 29-3 win over Bentley before more than 5,000 fans at Bulldog Stadium.
Bryant set 10 team and 38 individual records in 2007 including 14 by four-year standout quarterback Charlie Granatell. Granatell capped off his senior season in 2007 as the holder of all of Bryant's passing records including 6,984 career passing yards and 56 career touchdowns.
In only his third season at the helm of the Bulldog program in 2006, Bryant not only captured a share of its first-ever Northeast-10 Conference Championship, but earned its first-ever berth in the NCAA Division II Championship for which Bryant was rewarded as the host of the first round as the No. 4 seed of the tournament.
During the historical 2006 season that saw the Bulldogs go 8-3 overall, the Bulldogs possessed one of the nation's most feared offenses. Led by the standout running of All-American Lorenzo Perry, Bryant ranked 10th in the country in total offense and 10th in rushing offense. In addition to earning Player of the Year honors in the NE-10 and ECAC, Perry became Bryant's first ever finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy as the nation's top player, qualifying for the final round of eight in voting.
The Bulldogs finished fourth in the conference in scoring defense, allowing just 15.4 points per game. Overall defensively, Bryant ranked third in total defense with 260.2 yards per game. In addition, the defense ranked fourth in the NE-10 in pass defense, allowing just 139.5 yard per game, and finished fifth in rushing defense with 120.7 yards rushing per game.
Defensively, Bryant finished the season eighth in the country in pass efficiency defense with a 91.6 rating. Defensive end Mark Gunther was seventh nationally with a 1.2 sacks per game average.
In only two years as coach of the Bryant University football team, head coach Marty Fine has turned the Bulldogs into a contender in the Northeast-10 Conference. After a 4-5 record in 2004, the Bulldogs posted a school-record 7-3 record in 2005 and saw more than 30 individual and team records set during the team's historic season.
During Fine's second season in 2005, a total of seven players earned Northeast-10 All-Conference distiction. Perry earned all-New England honors with a record 1,335 yards and 17 touchdowns as the Bulldogs went 7-3 overall with more school records falling. Bryant picked up conference wins over American International (21-0), Assumption (48-38), Stonehill (24-12), Saint Anselm (27-0), and Bentley (27-14) and averaged more than 3,000 fans per game at Bulldog Stadium. In addition, the Bulldogs cracked the NCAA Northeast Regional Top-10 rankings for the first time in school history in 2005.
In 2004, Fine's first as coach of the young Bulldogs, Bryant made vast improvements in almost every statistical category, including setting several school records. Bryant improved in the win column by a game from the previous year and had five players named All-Conference by the Northeast-10, the most ever for Bryant in the sport of football.
An assistant coach at Iowa State for two seasons, Fine has more than twenty years of coaching experience under his belt and has coached at every level of organized football, including two successful head coaching positions at Sonoma State and U.S. Naval Academy Prep School. During his coaching career, Fine has served as coordinator for all three phases of coaching: offense, defense and special teams.
A native of Tarrytown, New York, Fine was the offensive line and special teams coordinator at Iowa State in 2002 and 2003, coaching two all-Big XII Conference performers at the Ames, Iowa school - including Zach Butler who signed an NFL contract with the Carolina Panthers after graduation in 2002.
During the 2002 season, the Cyclones' offensive line allowed the fewest number of sacks in the Big XII Conference and finished the year ranked in the Top-15 nationally with just 1.4 sacks allowed per game (19 total in 14 games in 02). Iowa State was ranked ninth nationally by the Associated Press, the highest ranking in school history with wins over Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Iowa and earned a trip to the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho.
Prior to arriving at Iowa State, Fine spent five years as an assistant at Indiana University, coaching the offensive tackles and tight ends, as well as serving as the Hoosiers' special team's coordinator. Indiana was ranked fourth nationally in rushing in 2001 and led the Big Ten Conference with an average of 269.5 yards per game rushing. That same fall, the Hoosiers averaged 435.3 total yards per contest.
Fine was promoted to tight ends/special teams coach at Indiana in January 2001, after serving as the program's tight ends coach and passing game coordinator in 2000. From 1997-99, Fine coached both tight ends and tackles and oversaw the Hoosiers' ground attack in 1998-99.
In his three seasons as Indiana's tackles and tight ends coach, he helped develop four offensive linemen who earned NFL roster spots, including Pita Elisara (Philadelphia Eagles), who garnered all-Big Ten accolades in both 1998 and 1999.
A total of 12 Indiana football players earned all-conference honors in 2002, including the entire offensive line and its tight end, all of which earned first, second, or honorable mention All-Big Ten honors.
A former linebacker at Union College in New York, Fine went to Indiana from Colgate where he spent the 1996 season as the Red Raiders' offensive line coach. A 1985 graduate of Western New Mexico University, Fine spent six years as the offensive coordinator (1993-95) and offensive line coach (1990-92) at Indiana State. The Sycamores' offense led the Gateway Conference in rushing from 1992 to 1995 and was ranked in the top-15 nationally during that same time.
