When Warren Harding hired Steve Arnold as its third football coach in three seasons, more than a few observers — yours truly among them — wondered aloud if this was a bit of a gamble.

Two gambles, actually.

Harding was gambling that a basketball coach could turn around a football program that crashed and burned with a 2-8 record in 2011.

Arnold was gambling by walking away from an extremely successful decade as the Raiders’ basketball coach to coach a sport he knew nothing about.

Stop right there. Enough with the misconceptions.

Harding didn’t hire Arnold as its curling coach. He wasn’t brought in to lead the Raiders’ cricket squad.

Football isn’t exactly foreign to Steve Arnold. He played the game. He worked as an assistant to former Harding football coach Phil Annarella.

Arnold never thought switching coaching jobs was risky. He embraced the challenge.

“Sometimes people, whether the sport is football or basketball, they make it more complicated than it is,” he said. “I’ve always taken the approach that coaching is coaching. I’m sure a football coach can coach basketball and a basketball coach can coach football.”

Don’t believe Arnold? Ask Howland and Cardinal Mooney if Harding’s “new guy” can coach. Arnold’s Raiders are coming off impressive back-to-back victories over the Tigers (34-0) and the Cardinals (28-20).

Harding is 2-1 entering tonight’s game against Maple Heights at Mollenkopf Stadium. In 2011, the Raiders won twice all season under Rick Rios, who was hired late and was promptly fired not long after Harding’s final game.

Those who defended Rios pointed out that his hiring in the spring — long after most new coaches had secured jobs and assistants — left him with few viable options to fill out his staff. A leadership vacuum became evident as the season progressed and there was often open turmoil on and off the field for the Raiders.

Arnold made sure that wouldn’t happen on his watch by hiring experienced coaches like Jeff Bayuk and John Croyts, who serve as his offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively. Bayuk is a veteran head coach who had stints at Canfield, Hubbard and Campbell Memorial. Bayuk and Vince Peterson, another Arnold hire, were integral parts of Howland coach Dick Angle’s staff before accepting jobs at Harding.

“I knew John way back when we both worked under coach Annarella,” Arnold said. “When I talked to Jeff, I realized we shared the same philosophies offensively. As a head coach, I trust those guys. I give them the leeway to do what they do best.”

Annarella and his Fitch Falcons spoiled Arnold’s debut with a 24-10 victory in Week 1 in Austintown, but the Raiders have done just about everything right since.

“I would have liked to be 3-0, but I’ll take 2-1 right now,” Arnold said. “In a worst-case scenario, we could have been 0-3.”

Fitting, no? Arnold even sounds like the perpetually dissatisfied football coach. He’s learned fast, and he’s hoping Harding’s players do, too.

“We can’t get complacent,” Arnold said. “Right now, the community is telling the kids how good they are, but we’re not as good as people are saying we are and we’re not as bad as people thought we were before the season started.

“We still have a long way to go. There’s a lot of room for improvement. ... We’ve gotten off to a halfway decent start, but there is still a lot of football to be played. I told the kids we can enjoy a win for 24 hours, then it’s time to start preparing for the next opponent. I told them I’ll tell them when it’s time to celebrate.”

Ed Puskas is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write him at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter @epuskas85.