His resume may not be as long as the other Eastern football head coach candidates, but Jeff Choate could bring a lot of wins and “swag” to a downtrodden Eastern football program.

Choate has been an assistant coach at Boise State since 2006, where he has helped the program reach six consecutive bowl games and accumulate a 73-6 record.

“Everyone asks how Boise State does it,” Choate said Monday night at a public interview in the Lantz Club Room. “It’s nothing in particular. It’s everything in general. We have set a standard and we don’t change it. We make it a goal to out work our opponents in the offseason.”

In Choate’s first season at Boise State, the Broncos made an unprecedented appearance in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. There, they beat the higher-rated Sooners in overtime. At the surface of the story was a couple offensive trick plays the Broncos successfully ran to catch the Sooners off guard at the end of the game.

That is not the reason the Broncos pulled the upset, Choate said.

“We beat Oklahoma in the six months leading up to that game,” Choate said referring to the team’s hard work in the offseason.

Now Choate hopes to bring his successful past to Eastern, where he said there is no reason a national title cannot be brought home to Charleston.

“If they can win a national championship in Cheney, Washington, there’s no reason why we can’t win one in Charleston,” Choate said.

Eastern Washington’s football program, in Cheney, Wash., won a national title in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, the same division Eastern Illinois is in. Cheney’s population is nearly 9,000 people.

To get the Panthers’ program to that level, Choate said the current players will be the ones to turn the tide.

Red-shirt sophomore linebacker Antonio Taylor said he was excited to hear that.

“Speaking for juniors and seniors next year, that’s probably one of the main things we are attracted to,” Taylor said.

Taylor was also impressed by Choate’s future plans in terms of staying in one place. The two previous coaching candidates were questioned during their public interviews on whether they would stay at Eastern for a long time, as retired head coach Bob Spoo did.

Choate answered the doubters before they had an opportunity to question him.

Choate has an 11-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, and has been married to his wife, Janet, for 16 years.

His family is “a big reason” he desires the Eastern head coaching job, he said.

“The time demands of being a coach at a big program like Boise State don’t allow you much time to see your family,” Choate said.

Compared to the previous two candidates’ responses to this question, Taylor said he was excited to hear Choate say that.

“He wants to be closer to his family and I think that shows that he’s here for the long haul,” Taylor said. “Unlike previous candidates, I feel like he’s gonna be here no matter what if he gets the job.”

Taylor said he was also impressed that Choate does not want to come into the program and turn it on its side by changing it all.

“I don’t want to use the world ‘rebuild,’ I want to use the word ‘win,'” Choate said.

Choate said Eastern would become an attacking team if he were the head coach, especially on special teams.

“We’re gonna run anything you can think of in the kicking game,” Choate said. “At Boise State, we pride ourselves on being creative.”

Choate, specializing in defense and special teams, said he will plan to field an aggressive, ferocious defense that pressures and confuses opposing quarterbacks.

“We’ll have swag on that side of the ball, I’ll guarantee you that,” Choate said.

Potentially coming to a struggling football program, Choate said he does not expect to go undefeated right off the bat. He said he and the players will have to learn from tough times. After all, that is how Choate said he became a better coach.

Learning from the struggles is a part of the student-athlete process, Choate said, and it is his goal to help his players have the best student-athlete experience they could have anywhere.

“The class of our organization shows the most when you’re in those (tough) situations,” Choate said. “We don’t need five-star players. We need five-star people.”

Taylor said he felt confident Choate’s philosophies and ideals would put Eastern back on the map. Overall, he was more impressed than with any other candidate.

“We want to be the 2012 team that turned things around, won games, went to the playoffs and won a national championship,” Taylor said. “His philosophies and plans to do that are very promising.”

The final candidate for the Eastern football head coaching job, Dino Babers, will be in a public interview at 4 p.m. today in the Lantz Club Room.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].

Dominic Renzetti contributed to this article.