ANDALE – Little things add up to big things in the world of Andale football, and the coaches’ office next to the school’s impressive weight room holds evidence of that.
 
Along one wall, a nearly empty box of protein snacks for weary lifters sits near a power brush that keeps footballs in prime condition for games and practices. Close by is a drone case used to store the equipment Andale uses to film its practices.
 
Three random items, three things deemed important to success.
 
“If there’s a bell or whistle that’s going to make us better, let’s do it,” said Andale’s Dylan Schmidt, whose powerhouse football team collected its fourth consecutive Class 3A championship and 51^st consecutive victory on Nov. 26, defeating Holton 28-0 at Hutchinson’s Gowans Stadium. “Let’s go get it. Let’s figure it out.”
 
Schmidt, KSHSAA Covered’s Coach of the Year, isn’t crazy. He knows the real heavy lifting (yes, pun intended) that has carried Andale to shared mentions with the state’s historical standard bearers for sustained greatness – Smith Center, Pittsburg Colgan, Conway Springs and Claflin – was performed this season by 84 players whose quest for four in a row featured near-perfect attendance at summer weight-room sessions.
 
Those days were the precursor to Andale’s latest storybook season, a 13-game tour de force in which the Indians outscored their opponents by a collective 689-68. Andale averaged 69.2 points in its first five games, allowed just 20 points in its last nine games and shut out its final three playoff opponents while also registering its third straight shutout in a state title game.

 
“The best summer attendance we’ve ever had was last summer,” said Schmidt, a 2001 Andale graduate who is 74-2 since taking over for Gary O’Hair prior to the 2017 season. “The only time a kid missed is when he went on a family vacation. That’s all 84 guys, and we track it.
 
“That’s just so impressive when you have the pressure on you or whatever you want to say. We talk about how it’s a privilege to get everybody’s best shot every week. But it’s another thing to have our kids come in and say, ‘We’ve already done this, but it’s not good enough. We want to do this.’ You’re always motivating, but they are self-motivated kids who know how to work.”
 
Schmidt was once in their shoes, a standout athlete who starred in football, basketball and track at Andale before competing collegiately in the pole vault at Kansas State and Wichita State. Now, a couple months shy of his 40^th birthday, he is anchored firmly to his alma mater, which features one of the state’s most successful boys and girls athletic programs.
 
“One of the big things I really liked about playing for him is he’s kind of a player’s coach,” All-State senior running back and linebacker Riley Marx said. “If we ever had a suggestion or ever said, ‘Hey, we think this might work’ or something like that, he’s always willing to try it and see how it goes.”
 
Schmidt’s path to leading one of the state’s elite programs features an ironic twist. After a couple seasons assisting O’Hair, Schmidt earned his first career head coaching victory with Wellington – 35-28 over Andale – in the 2011 season opener.
 
It was one of three Crusader victories that season. The following spring, O’Hair, a Kansas Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame member, contacted Schmidt about a pending opening at Andale. Schmidt was also Wellington’s head track coach. A move home to become an assistant on O’Hair’s football staff required sacrifice.
 
“It was a tough decision because I didn’t want to be an assistant,” Schmidt said. “I wanted to be a head coach. Especially when you’re younger, you think you can do it all. But Andale was a place where we wanted to raise a family. I got bad-mouthed and, you know, it is what it is. But in coaching or athletics, you’ve got to have thick skin and you’ve got to take risks. That was my personality.”
 
With no guarantees as a head coach in waiting, Schmidt served multiple roles on O’Hair’s staff from 2012-16. He coordinated special teams, worked with the defense and was an understudy to O’Hair, who called the offensive plays. Andale won the Class 4A-Division I title with a 13-0 record in 2014.
 
Two seasons later, O’Hair stepped down. Schmidt was promoted and inherited a staff that included veteran coaches like Tim Fairchild, who was Schmidt’s sixth-grade physical education teacher.
 
“Those guys were good about the fact that it wasn’t, ‘Hey, well this is how we’ve done it,’” Schmidt said. “It was like, ‘How do you want to do it? OK, let’s go.’
 
“There were some things I wanted to do differently – the way we ran our practice – and so on. When you’re the head guy you want the support of your assistants, and you’ve got to earn that. At the same time you want guys who say, ‘How do you want to run this?’ And that’s how those guys were.”
 
Andale won its first 12 games under Schmidt before falling 47-7 to Bishop Miege in the 2017 4A-Division I final. The next season, Andale went 11- 1 with a 21-19 state semifinal loss to Pratt.
 
Then came the start of the current winning streak, one that matches Claflin’s 51-game winning streak from 1997-2000 for fourth longest in state history. Only Smith Center’s 79-game run from 2004-09, Colgan’s 66 from 2000-04 and Conway Springs’ 62 from 2001-05 are longer.
 
“We’ve never really talked about it much until we reach a milestone,” Marx said. “When it got to 30, I know it was like, ‘Hey, let’s take a picture with a yard-line marker.’ And 40. And 50.
 
“Those big accomplishments, we maybe talk about them after a game or on Thursday night pregame. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten to the point where we’re stressed out about the streak. Every week, it was, ‘Hey, let’s go win this game. We’re going to play our best game and win and be 1-0.’ Not 30-0 or 40-0. Just take each week as it goes.”
 
Like many coaches, Schmidt built his philosophy after observing countless peers. He visited Joel Applebee, coach of reigning Class 5A champion Mill Valley, Derby’s Brandon Clark, and staff members at Kansas and K-State among others.
 
Now, it’s not uncommon for Kansas high school coaches to reach out to Schmidt to try to learn more about Andale’s secrets to success.
 
“He’s very organized, high energy and he understands that you cannot put it on auto-pilot,” said Fairchild, whose 33-year coaching career includes assistant positions under former state championship winners in O’Hair, Pratt’s Richard Anderson and Derby’s Tom Young. “He’s younger, but he still has a good old-school approach.
 
“The computer and all the things that it provides can be a distraction if you’re not careful. You’ve still got to know the game and know your kids and be able to make adjustments on the fly and not rely on the iPad. You still need to teach kids things like how to tackle and block, and he’s really keen on that.”
 
Schmidt’s staff is a blend of young and old, and an extension of himself. In addition to Fairchild, the Indians’ defensive coordinator, Andale’s assistants include Tyler Ryan, a former head coach; longtime offensive line coach Derek Deegan; Mike Blasi, Andale’s film specialist who coached Schmidt when he was a freshman; and special teams coordinator Chris Joly. Tyler Ryan, Jordan Ungles, Andrew Bergkamp, Cameron Cothan, Shawn Bretthauer and O’Hair’s son, Tucker, are also part of the staff.
 
After his sixth season as Andale’s head coach and seventh overall, Schmidt views his role like that of a CEO.
 
“A high school football coach is basically running a small business because there’s fundraising and coaching your coaches and dealing with kids and dealing with parents and everything else,” Schmidt said. “There are just a lot of moving parts. The biggest thing that’s helped me, and it’s the truth, is having good people around you.
 
“We have great assistant coaches, and I think I’ve done a good job of delegating and saying, ‘Hey, this is your role. This is what we need you to do.’”
 
Schmidt credits O’Hair for leaving him with a program that allowed him to “hit the ground running.” Coaching peers like Clark, who has won six 6A titles since 2013 at Derby, admire Schmidt’s continued pursuit of excellence.
 
“He’s taken that program from a really, really good program to a great program,” Clark said. “He cares about the kids, but he’s not going to deviate from his standards. He’s going to hold his kids to high standards even though sometimes that’s not the easiest thing to do.
 
“He’s going to keep pushing them, and even though he knows they’re probably going to be pretty good, he makes them even better. He’s looking for greatness out there.”