COLUMN: The difficulty in defining success in Matukewicz's first season

College football programs and their coaches primarily are judged on the number of games their team wins.

Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not. Maybe that's what matters most, maybe it's not. Maybe you think I'm wrong. Maybe you know I'm right.

Either way, Tom Matukewicz's time as the Southeast Missouri State football coach will be remembered by most for what his teams achieved on the field, but his first season shouldn't be. And maybe not his second or third either.

Matukewicz was on the staff that turned SIU into a national power.

The Salukis were 3-8 before Jerry Kill and his staff took over in 2001, went 1-10 in Kill's first season, 4-8 a year later and 10-2 the year after that.

Matukewicz eventually moved with Kill to Nothern Illinois, where the team had just finished a 2-10 season. The Huskies went 6-7 and 7-6 in the staff's first two years there before a breakout 11-3 season in 2011.

I don't know if Matukewicz will be able to lead Southeast to that kind of turnaround, but I know it's not likely to happen this season. That doesn't mean there is no reason for optimism.

While Southeast has had several good football teams in its history, it hasn't been able to boast a consistently good program in decades.

"When I got here the program was not broken," Matukewicz said at the team's media day on Sunday. "I've been in a broken program, and I know what that feels like. The program was not broken. I guess the best word to describe it when I got here was 'asleep.' It felt like intramurals. Our players took it like intramurals."

The stories to back that up haven't been hard to find since Matukewicz and his staff took over in December. There have been a few players admitting they did little in practice with little direction and little care if they improved, others admitted some teammates ignored coaches directives in weight sessions and routinely partied the night before games.

The players talked about improvement and winning, but few seemed to believe it would happen.

Standout wide receiver Paul McRoberts -- a player whose dedication, focus and work ethic never have been questioned -- said in the past it has been the player's "choice" to work hard. Now it's a responsibility, and a welcome one at that.

"I tried to build my teammates up, but the coaches just came in here and did it so fast," McRoberts said.

"It all starts with confidence. Ever since the first day the coaching staff came in it's been nothing but confidence -- confidence and love," he said. "They make you feel like a million bucks even if most of us think we're poor. They make you feel like you could jump off a bridge and survive. They just build us up so much and they believe in us so much that you actually -- and other teammates -- they start believing in themselves. That's the difference between last year and this year -- people actually believe it."

It will be a great day when it's possible to talk about the present for the Southeast football team without needing to talk about the past, but we're not there yet. It's not about tearing down the people who used to be in charge, it's about understanding where the people now in charge started to build.

I've written about it before, but when Matukewicz took over Dec. 18, he had seven weeks to hire a staff and recruit -- the previous staff had signed no players and had no verbal commitments -- whatever players hadn't already signed with another school with a limited number of 11 scholarships. The team had no summer program in place and, worst of all, no expectations of success.

The Redhawks have those now. It's just hard to define what success will look like this season.

The team is going to step onto the field at Houck Stadium on Aug. 28 for its first game under Matukewicz.

I don't know what to expect from the Redhawks and neither does he.

"I never have been in this league," Matukewicz said. "I don't know what their talent is like. I'm going to be looking forward to the game like you are in the fact that I'm waiting to see how we stack up. I really don't know."

I asked him what a successful first year would look like overall -- not simply on the field.

"I think we've already won," he said. "If we went 0-for, I feel like the community would still feel like we are on the right track and these players are making better decisions than before."

Matukewicz understands that those improved decisions eventually will have to translate into wins, but he also knows from experience that football programs aren't just built in the weight room or on the field. He's relayed this to his team in a number of ways, from stressing the four foundations of the team -- attitude, effort, discipline and passion -- to mantras like "brick by brick" and "sign off," which Matukewicz explained means "everything you do is a statement of who you are. Whatever it is that you decide to do, make sure that you put your name or you sign off on your rep, your work, your paper, your presentation -- whatever you're doing, sign off on it."

Whatever you think of coaches' catchphrases, it's clear the Redhawks have bought into the ones Matukewicz uses.

"We understand it now and understand it's a daily process," cornerback Reggie Jennings said. "It's off the field -- going to class, doing our homework, treatment, just doing community service, just being out here -- those are the little bricks that we need to not only make us better football players but better men as well."

Matukewicz isn't a coach who bothers with writing down goals about winning games or championships. Those are implied, and the focus is on the process.

I believe the players and coaches will take pride in the process of preparing to win this season, regardless of how many times they do win.

Everyone I talked with said they understood most people would judge the season based on what happens on the field, and it would be disrespectful to suggest the games played this season don't matter.

They do.

Every success and setback this season will impact the future, but for now the successes might not all be wins. Sometimes success is just believing you can succeed.

"Things can be wrong, but if you believe something, it might happen," McRoberts said. "If you go into something thinking -- like last year, 'Oh we don't have a chance to win this game' then ... more than likely you're going to lose. Everybody feels like 'I can really do this. We can really do this.' That's how it really is this year. It's a big difference, and it's something we need."