With the goal of taking his side from the bottom of the Western Conference in 2016 to the USL Cup Playoffs this season, new Tulsa Roughnecks FC Head Coach Dave Vaudreuil has a blueprint for how he’s going to accomplish the feat.

It also happens to be the same blueprint that helped the Rochester Rhinos claim the 2015 USL Cup.

A former teammate of Rhinos Head Coach Bob Lilley when the two played indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat more than 20 years ago, and friend ever since, Vaudreuil’s admiration for what Lilley has accomplished in the head-coaching ranks has influenced his outlook as he goes into his first season with the Roughnecks.

“I think he’s been the standard-bearer in this league,” Vaudreuil told the Roughnecks’ YouTube channel of Lilley. “When Rochester won this league going almost undefeated for 80 percent of the season they gave up 16 goals in 30 games, an amazing stat that you just don’t see very often.

“If we can get goals against in the 25 to 28 goals against range, I think that pretty much guarantees us a spot in the playoffs, and makes us competitive where we can beat anyone in the league and make a run at the playoffs.”

Vaudreuil’s thinking certainly bears out. The top three teams in the USL’s Western Conference standings last season were also the only three in the conference to concede fewer than 30 goals in the regular season. In comparison, the Roughnecks’ leakiness at the back led to their lowly final position. 

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As the club builds toward the new season, the other focus for Vaudreuil and the Roughnecks’ staff is giving the side a chance to make a run in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Tulsa has yet to advance to face MLS opposition in the historic tournament in its first two years, being eliminated by OKC Energy FC in the Third Round in 2015, and the PDL’s Des Moines Menace in the Second Round a year ago, but with the right squad Vaudreuil believes the Roughnecks will be well positioned.

“We’ll be built in a manner, I hope, where we’ll have enough team speed and enough technique and enough experience at high levels where I think we should be able to make a good run,” said Vaudreil. “Obviously it’s a one-off game and it’s a knockout format, so that makes it exciting and interesting, and anything can happen.”

Should the Roughnecks find success this season, they will certainly have people to share it with them. Led by the Roustabouts, Tulsa’s soccer community is hungry for a team it can get behind in a similar manner to the D.C. United and Chicago Fire supporters that Vaudreuil played in front of early during his career.

“I told the Roustabouts that to this day, whenever I go back to RFK with D.C. United, the first thing I do is go up to the Barra Brava where the supporters’ groups are, and jump in there,’ Vaudreuil said.  “Hopefully you don’t get a beer poured on you, but you get a beer and a scarf and a hat and you’re over there jumping up and down with them for as long as I hang out there. I still feel like I never left, like I’m a part of that team, and we want to create that type of atmosphere here to where the supporters and the fans and the community feel like they’re a part of it all.”

With lofty aspirations set for the new season, the work of making it happen is already underway. Vaudreuil and his side are hopeful they can bring an exciting brand of winning soccer to the city’s fans.

“Hopefully they have a lot to cheer on,” said Vaudreuil. “We’re going to make it exciting, and have enough success and high-level action on the field that they’re going to buy into it and get excited and support us.”