It starts at the top, right? Winning, losing, culture, attitude and everything in between starts at the top. 

Tremaine Jackson is now at the top for the Colorado Mesa University football team and if everything he says about the future culture of Maverick football comes to fruition, then it’s a future to be excited about. 

Jackson was hired from Texas State University and was officially named the new head coach of CMU back on Dec. 23. He served as the defensive-line coach at TSU for the last year and was the defensive coordinator for FCS Abilene Christian the prior two seasons. 

But why hire a defensive-line coach who has never had any previous experience as a head coach? Is this really the best hire for CMU? Yes…yes it is. 

After one phone conversation with Jackson, I learned that the new man in charge of the Mavericks is bringing in a culture of hard work, transparency and love to Grand Junction. Yes, love. 

A positive culture is a winning culture. Look at Dabo Swinney at Clemson. The National Champion Tigers are led by a man who’s one of his most famous quotes is “Let the light that shines in you be brighter than the light that shines on you.” 

Talking to Jackson, one would tend to hear the same type of comments. 

“Coaching is much bigger than the X’s and O’s from me,” Jackson said. “You have to have them but I’ve seen love win. So I’m really passionate about guys truly loving guys and fueling a true team.” 

“People have a lot of things about family and all of that stuff. So all of these experiences that I have been able to go through and have really have shown me that family is about one thing… ‘Forget about me, I love you.”

Family makes for a great football team. Jackson has already started building his new family right after New Years. On Jan. 2, he flew out to Colorado in order to recruit and get to know local talent. Jackson visited schools on the front range like Cherry Creek, Heritage and Highlands Ranch High School to name a few. 

Colorado is new territory for Jackson, but it isn’t foreign. So recruiting in-state is one of the first items on the new year agenda and his first act as the head coach was to scout the potential field. 

“I’ve recruited in Colorado before, I knew what type of players were there,” Jackson said. “We’ve won a lot of games with a lot of players from Colorado. So when I got on campus, that really sold the deal for me.” 

Another positive is the recognition of the potential for CMU and the championship program it can be in due time. Jackson saw this during his first time visiting campus for his interview. He saw an already established defense (which he loved as a defensive-minded guy), a plethora of young and hard working talent waiting to be groomed and a supportive athletic department that will do whatever it takes to get the right hands on deck. 

“I left there saying I really hope I get a call back. I could really see a great program being implemented and built here,” Jackson said after his first in-person interview. “I walked away saying ‘I don’t think Colorado Mesa football is a rebuild’…I feel like it will be a renovation and not a rebuild. Gotta get some things done at the key spots.” 

“I shared with the committee that I mean a renovation as the foundation is already here. It might need some new sinks, it might need some new windows, might wanna put in some new blinds but we don’t need to tear the whole house down and start over from scratch.” 

The foundation that CMU already has speaks from 2019’s season highlights, especially the defense. The Mavericks had the third best passing defense in the RMAC as well third best in defensive efficiency. Nick Ciccio has a conference high eight interceptions that helped the Mavericks have the second most out of any team in the RMAC. 

The offense was top-five for almost every single category despite using a rather young offensive line and a rotating quarterback carousel that saw three different starting quarterbacks.   

Jackson will officially be introduced as the new CMU head football coach on Friday, Jan. 10.