midway through stevens' first season, with the bulldogs at 12–1, "the new york times" wrote "so far, stevens has made the transition [to head coach] look easy." "the times" went on to state that stevens had the calm and composure of a seasoned veteran. "you’ve got a lot of people always looking for the next step. and that’s not what i was doing. i was just trying to figure out a way to win the next game and think like a head coach." stevens said.