GREELEY, Colo. — When Ed Lamb talks about rebuilding University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Bears football, he often starts with asparagus.
The analogy — rooted in patience — reflects a program that has spent more than a decade near the bottom of the Big Sky Conference and is trying to grow its way back to relevance.
The Bears have not had a winning season since 2011 and for years struggled not just to win, but to remain competitive deep into games. When Lamb arrived in Greeley, he didn’t promise immediate results. Instead, he pointed to something that takes time.
“First time that came up, it was just kind of off the cuff, and just somebody from the community was asking me, oh, how long are you going to stay? Because coaching can be a pretty transient business,” Lamb said. “It just came to my mind that I had planted asparagus the year before, and it takes three years to get your first harvest on asparagus. I love the garden. It's one of my hobbies, one of our family hobbies that we do together. And so asparagus just happened to be one of the things we planted, but it just came to my mind as an easy way of saying, I'm not going anywhere."
That patience began to show last season.
Northern Colorado won four games — its most since 2016 — and was within reach in several others, with multiple losses decided by a single score.
“They need to see that they can compete with anyone,” Lamb said. “To realize that they were a couple of plays away from being a winning team or a playoff team was disappointing for last year, but encouraging for this year.”
In an era defined by transfer portal movement, Lamb has leaned into developing high school talent — particularly in-state — rather than chasing quick fixes.
“I think it was just the best avenue available to us. There are a lot of teams that are relying on portal recruiting, but that costs money,” he said. “Those transfer kids have a price tag that, combined with the fact that Colorado has been under recruited at the high school level, so I see excellent development potential in the Colorado high school kids, and now we're building a regional cohesiveness that I can feel, and I know our players can feel.”
Now entering his fourth season, Lamb said the shift is most visible in the program’s veteran players.
“Things felt pretty recreational with a lot of the guys in my first couple of years here. And we did a lot of preaching about lifestyle and commitment, but those guys from our first couple of recruiting classes, are now seniors and and I can feel a big difference in their commitment,” he said.
While there are still obstacles to overcome, Lamb feels hopeful this will be a "harvest" year.
“I use the term obstacles very deliberately. They're not barriers to success. UNC can be successful. We can win a Big Sky championship," Lamb told Denver7. "We can be a nationally relevant football team, but we do have to overcome some obstacles that other schools in our conference don't have.”
What began as an offhand gardening reference has become a blueprint — one centered on patience, development and staying power.
For the first time in years, the Bears appear to be taking root.
