Coach -

Every coach talks about building a program. Very few have actually done it from the ground up — and the ones who have tend to say the same things in different words.

Here are three principles, from three of the best to ever do it, that show what building a winning program actually looks like in practice.

Video: Bill Snyder on Building Culture at Kansas State

1. Bill Snyder: Daily Improvement Beats Daily Results

When Coach Bill Snyder took over at Kansas State, he walked into a roster of 47 scholarship players, none of whom had ever won a game at the university. Every player's GPA had dropped since arriving. Players told him they were too embarrassed to wear a leather jacket on campus. Too embarrassed to go to class on Mondays or Tuesdays.

Snyder took them out to the stadium, turned the scoreboard on, and told them he was not going to assess them based on what it said. He'd evaluate them on one thing: their capacity to be committed to improvement every single day. Not just football. Everything.

Then he built a system around it. Before practice, position coaches met with their guys — each player defined one specific thing to improve that day. After practice, Coach Snyder stood at the locker room door and stopped every player with three questions:

- What were you supposed to improve upon today?

- Did you?

- If you did, how? If you didn't, what are we going to do about it?

Every player. Every day. One win the first year. Then four, five, seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Gradual — and that's the point.

2. Nick Saban: Make the Standard About Them

Video: Nick Saban on Player Discipline

Coach Nick Saban takes the same principle of daily accountability and turns it into a question a player can't argue with.

When a player's discipline slips, Saban doesn't lecture. He sits him down and asks: "Tell me how this behavior is going to help you accomplish the goals you told me you had?" When you make it about them, they see for themselves that the choice isn't serving them.

Saban puts it in draft terms. After sitting through eight NFL drafts, he says the two most dangerous words in any scouting report are "and" and "but." The report reads the player first: quick feet, good ball skills, captain of the team. Then: "but positive drug test. But got in a bar fight." Players control what comes after "but." That's discipline.

3. Steve Sarkisian: Today Is the Most Important Day

Video: Steve Sarkisian on Mental Toughness

Coach Steve Sarkisian rebuilt Texas by refusing to let his program look backward or sideways.

"What's been wrong with Texas over the last 10 years? I don't know. I'm not worried about that. Not my problem. My problem is what are we doing right now and where are we headed?"

Ask any player on his team what the most important day is. Today. Guess what tomorrow is going to be? The most important day. It doesn't change.

If it's a recovery day, recover your butt off. If it's a family day, spend time with your family. If it's a practice day, best practice day. If it's a test day, best test that day. One message on repeat: bring the best version of yourself today.

Three coaches. Different programs, different eras, different styles. Same foundation: build the standard one day at a time, hold players accountable to their own goals, and never let yesterday or tomorrow matter more than right now.

Always be growing,

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P.S. The clip above is from Coach Snyder's full sit-down on what it actually takes to lead a winning football program. He goes deeper into the daily process, how he ran team meetings and individual accountability sessions, how he developed players and staff, and the leadership framework behind one of the greatest program turnarounds in college football history. The full course is available FREE below:

Link: Bill Snyder - Building a Winning Football Program