¶ Air Raid Coaching Career
Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ride Home Rants podcast . This is , as always , your host , mike Bono . I have a fantastic guest for us today . He is a seven-time head college coach . His overall college record was 142 , 152 , and won . He's won three bowl games in division one .
He is an overall spring league record of six and one and was the golf Southern coach of the year in 1996 . We're gonna get into his extensive resume and everything like that . But how mummy joins the show , how , thanks for joining man . Hey , thanks , mike , i appreciate you having me . Hey , not a problem .
So , first and foremost , for for those of my listeners out there that aren't old enough , like me , to know your coaching career , you know where , where did you , where do you come from ? from high school into college ? you know what down to get you started into the , into the coaching aspect of things .
I played college football at Tarleton State in Texas and when I graduated from there I went down to Corpus Christi and I worked for my father and he had a farm equipment business . I worked for him for about six months and then I had a chance to go over to Moody High School in Corpus Christi and be the quarterback and receiver coach .
I did that for three years and then I got a chance to be a head coach at a little smaller school in the area , aransas Pass . I did that for a year and then I got a break and a great gentleman named Billy Young was the head football coach at West Texas State .
It's now West Texas A&M and they're D2 , but in those days they were division one and he hired me to be the quarterback and receiver coach at West Texas State . We went over there and we had two really good years and then we got the job at UTEP and he promoted me to offensive coordinator .
So at 29 I was like the youngest offensive coordinator in division one and four years later we got fired and I felt like I was the oldest , but we I learned a lot along the way .
The main thing I learned was we got to follow BYU through the schedule and we always had their tapes or their film and I started studying what LaVelle , edwards and those guys were doing out there in Probo as far as throwing the ball and stretching the field .
You know , i had all those great quarterbacks McMahon and Steve Young and all those guys and I really fell in love with the way they played football . And our last year there was 1985 and I was the OC We had a pretty decent team . We were very young , we were starting all freshmen and sophomores and we beat them .
They were the number one team in the nation in one poll and they were number three in the other poll and they had just come off their 1984 campaign where they were the national champions .
And they came to El Paso and we had a fantastic game and upset them Probably still one of the biggest wins UTEPs ever had and we went through that The rest of that season .
We ended up getting fired and the BYU coaches were kind of taken back by the fact that they fired us because they thought we were doing a pretty good job , particularly since we beat them . And I was standing at the National Convention and a couple of their assistants walked up and they said what are you gonna do now ?
I said , well , i'm trying to get either a head high school job or a small college job . I want to be the boss . They said , well , you know , mike Holmgren just left our staff and Coach Edwards I'm sure he'd love to talk to you about coming to BYU . And they said you know , we've lost some games before , but we've never lost to a team .
We should be doing the things that we do . I had managed to copy them enough that we made some of those pass plays in that game work and our defense played a fabulous game and we managed to frustrate them and win the game . But you know , i'm Catholic , i smoke cigars , drink bourbon . I wasn't gonna fit into good pro you talk .
So I said , well , i really appreciate it , guys , but I think I'm gonna take , i think I really want to be . I want to be my own boss . You know right , i want to promote program , whether it's in high school or college . I just won't do it myself . And they said , well , you're always welcome at BYU , you come anytime you want study .
And so I took them up on it and they didn't invite a lot of people . They were pretty close mouth in those days about what they were doing and so that was really a blessing , a godsend for me to be able to go up there and study and it got . So I went twice a year for about six years in a row and then after that I went once a year .
So for about ten years I I saw it every . I saw every offensive game that LaVelle Edwards ever coached on film and we we kept going back to that same place and building on , taking what they did , putting our own spin to it and and then you know it just worked out and that's what people know as air raid offense nowadays .
It really had its inception in in their film room and it got so reddit Cheryl was coach Edwards secretary and when I'd show up she'd hand me the key of the first day and say , look , just lock up at night because you know I was gonna sit in that film room till like 10 30 at night watching all those cut-ups .
But I took it back , we built it into what is known as air raid and the . After three years at the high school level in Texas at Copper's Cove , doing that , i got lucky again and I got a head coaching job at little tiny Iowa Wesleyan College . They mainly hired me .
They hired a high school coach from Texas because they couldn't get any high school coaches from my . I wouldn't take the job . It was that bad . Then won a game in two years oh wow and had no facilities and but a great little school . Unfortunately they closed past May after 181 years , but we went there and that's where I hired Mike Leach and .
Mike came on board and he was . He was a had been a BYU student and really loved that offense , like I did , and so we took it and started building on it . We got very good . You got a word of place that had won a game in two years .
That when I went to the first meeting of all the coaches , i was everybody's favorite because they all wanted to play us for homecoming . And next year they voted us out of the league because we beat all of them .
So we ended up being an independent and we ended up having to play these big schools that were a lot bigger than us most of them are FCS or D2 nowadays , yeah , and so the third year we were there , we had our best team back , our quarterback . All our receivers are lying everybody and I said , mike , we need an edge .
And whenever we needed to do something , we would get my 1984 Ford Taurus that the school gave me to drive around in and we would take off and go study with somebody . You know we'd drive to Green Bay and see Lindy and Fonte . You know we just wherever was throwing the ball .
We want to know what they were doing and and so , going into the 1991 season , that last year that we were there , i told Mike . I said we've got to have an edge . I said we got the best team we've ever had at this school , but but our schedule so hard we may only win three games and he goes . Well , what do you want to do ?
I said let's go to Florida and recruit . Find the size that finds somebody in Florida to recruit . So , mike being Mike , he finds the kicker in Key West . I go to the president . I asked for money to go to Florida to recruit , but only got enough money to fly to Orlando .
So we're gonna like nine hours between us and the kicker , right , yeah , we fly into Orlando and as we're landing , mike says you know , they have one of those spring leagues going on right now . I know some of the coaches on their staff . You want to go to practice ? I'll say yeah , let's do that .
So well , the coach was Don Matthews , who ended up winning seven great cups in Canada . He was a great coach . Yeah , we went out to the Citrus Bowl and they took us under their wing . Let us sit in all the meetings and just really treat us like kings and we're walking out to practice . I looked at Coach Matthews . I said tell me what your best drill is .
He said well , watch , banded drill . At the end That's where we practice our two minutes offense . I'd seen two minute offenses before but I'd never seen it this well organized . I mean , he had it down . Offense was on one sideline , defense was on the other sideline . They had the punters and kickers spot in the ball .
Before a play was ever over , the ball was already in place . They were bouncing about 10 yards down the field on every snap , just substituting and executing , and defense was doing the same thing . It was just a fantastic drill , right . I looked Mike and I said there's our edge . He goes we're going to do it all the time , aren't we ?
I go yeah , it's not going to be the two minute offense , it's going to be the whole offense . Yeah , it's going to be the 60 minute offense . So we took it back to Iowa . We finished our trip . We ended up signing the kicker . By the way , we got him to Iowa from Key West Pretty good player today .
We got back and we put it in in that spring In our quarterback . He was returning all American . He'd been a starter for three years , going into his third year start . We went through the spring and I said Dustin , how do you like the hurry up offense ? He goes , everybody hates it . I go . Why He goes ? well , it's just too much .
It's just too many decisions to make too fast . I said , well , let me work on it this summer and I'm going to cut it back , i'm going to make the menu shorter . And that's what I did . I said give me one week . When we come back in August for camp , if you don't like it , we'll junk it .
Well , we came back , i cut down the plays , the number of plays , and if anybody here ever saw Mike Mike was pretty famous for always had that little card in his hand . You know that was his play sheet . Unlike the NFL guys , they got two sheets of cover there . Yeah , the whole , yeah , 145 plays . Mike had his 10 or 15 right there on that little card .
Well , that's where that came from . Was we cut that menu back so that we could I mean , we could basically memorize the plays ? And we put it in , went through the week of practice And I called Dustin and D Walde And I said what do you think now ? I said do you want to still want to junk it ?
And he goes no , everybody loves it now He said you cut it back . Now everybody knows what to do . So the first game with that season , we had to play a team that was ranked number 10 in the nation , a division above us And Northeast Missouri .
They're now called Truman State , but we had about 800 students at Iowa Wesleyan , northeast Missouri probably had 800 students in all their English classes , so they were thousands of students . They were about 90 miles away And we'd gotten so good so fast . Nobody would play us .
The smaller liberal arts colleges that we should have been playing against wouldn't play us . So we were stuck playing all these guys . Well , northeast called and wanted to play a game And I said , ok , but I need a home game . Y'all got to come to me first . So we go out there and kick off And at halftime we're down 24 to 7 .
We had one drive that was really good , and then we spent the rest of the half just to kind of screw it up . We had a punt return and something else . At halftime I'm walking into the locker room And the quarterback comes up to me . He goes you don't have to say anything to anybody , we're going to win this game .
I was , i was , i was envisioning more 48 to 14 . I'm sure he's watching the same game I'm watching . And then I had this big left tackle named Shawn Martin , who was really a sweet kid that probably never said a whole sentence to me in three years .
He comes up , puts his arm around me , says don't even worry about it , coach , we're going to win this game . I walked in the locker room and it was like it was Mike , we . It was like we were the team that was up 24 to 7 . The guys were laughing and joking . They , they know they're gonna kick their ass And so I didn't say anything to them .
We end up beating them 35 to 31 Wow , and it was the beginning of a run that was really incredible to this day . Well , they closed the doors in May . 181 years of school history And about a over a hundred years of football history . They had only been to the national playoffs one time and that was that season . Wow , we , we did that .
And then I got the job at Val d'Aus estate . We all moved down there , but and then Val d'Aus to the Kentucky and Kentucky to Southeast Louisiana , and then song and so forth . But That's what people really want to know about his air raid and that's where it started .
Yeah , that that I remember my being back in high school in the early 2000s and we Abandoned our run game and we had some you know , hella good running backs that could have been D1 players , you know , and we just pretty much abandoned the run and we went to this spread them out air raid offense , which was good for
¶ Air Raid Offense Evolution
me because I was a receiver so I get a little playing time , so I didn't care about that , but you know it was . You know I didn't know where that came from . It's that's really interesting to me to didn't know that . That's where that started . I didn't know where it actually started at Matt's well , that's where it started .
In those days There was a few guys throwing the ball . There was us , there was mouse Davis and June Jones , john Jenkins , kind of the running shoot guys . You know , yeah , and they've been at several pro teams and a couple of colleges , and there was still byu . They were still throwing around and Couple others .
You know , dennis Erickson was doing great things at Miami , university of Miami , but the , the club of people that were gonna throw it more than 40 times a game , was really small . Sure , yeah , but there wasn't a lot of people that were there were gonna do that , and and Mike Leach came on board .
I hired Mike because I wanted I need to hire an old line coach , because I wanted somebody to collaborate with and and I could handle the quarterbacks and receivers and we had a couple other Systems that helped us too . But , but I really needed somebody in that old line room that could get it done .
And the few old line coaches I talked to about doing it In 1989 , if you said I want you to play out of a two-point stance and we're gonna have big splits And we're gonna throw the ball 50 times a game , most those guys would get up , walk out of the room before you finish the sentence , right .
And So I decided I just wanted to hire the smartest person I could find and it turned out to be Mike Leach , and Mike really was Guess the credit , for He invented what all the offensive line play which there's some great offensive line coaches in that have had air raid backgrounds And then are still an air raid offense is to a lot of them .
Bill Beaton bought Oklahoma , mason Miller at Tarleton There's a whole bunch Matt Moore at West Virginia There's a ton of them out there . But Mike is the guy that put all that together And and started it , and he did the drills and the terminology and the big splits , you know , right , all that stuff . So He really deserves a credit for that .
But that's yeah , that's where it started . And then we went to Val d'Ausus State , which is in South Georgia , and in those days Vince Dooley had been at Georgia for a long time and I think Ray Goff had just replaced him when we went down there . But you Know , their idea of changing the offense up was running toss sweep to the left .
So they were , they were gonna run the ball on every play . So we get to Val d'Ausus and We do not have a very warm reception there . There's there's this guy from Texas has been coaching in Iowa . He says he's gonna throw the ball 50 times . You can't do that in this league and And and .
So that the first couple of years there were pretty icy , but then we started winning all these games and People started falling love what we're doing .
We started drawing big crowds at the games because we were entertaining and By our third year there , in 1994 , we played for the national championship and our quarterback , chris Hatcher , won the Harlan Hill Trophy and He's now he's the head coach at Samford University and is in Birmingham . Does does the stuff just like he did it when he was a player .
They they had a great run this past year . I think they were in the , got beat the semifinals .
They did it .
Yeah , you know , and all the other , dana Holgerson , and and of course coach Leach and my son that , and Jane Orville at Colorado State , you Know , there's just a ton of matter doing stuff . Neil Brown at West Virginia .
Yeah , I know Neil Brown . Yeah , I'm a huge West Virginia fan .
I follow that program , So yeah but I you know , what happened was When we got to Kentucky it started a little bit . At Valdosta The local coaches started coming around and wanting to know what we're doing . After the last couple years They were there , we had huge amounts of business from coaches And they started wanting to know what we were doing .
And then I I got Blessed and coach Newton came and hired me to take the job at the University of Kentucky And we inherited Tim couch and so it was just a perfect fit and And see him was really brilliant . He was way ahead of me . He was the first guy that that Wasn't a coach , that that believed in what we were doing .
You know right , yeah , i mean .
It was willing to take a chance , you know right . So when we got to UK , that first year there we we beat Louisville , which was that hadn't happened in a while , and That was a big win . And then we beat Indiana . And then we we had a .
We had a really tough loss to Florida who was playing for the national championship one of the national championship pay here and But a great game . And then the next year , the next week , we played Alabama and Kentucky hadn't beat Alabama in 75 years .
And Our players got so much confidence from those first few games that when Alabama came to town , they , they knew they could beat Alabama and and we did . And when once you beat Alabama , they , they may not like it that you beat them , but they're gonna find out what you did , right .
So we started getting Alabama high school coaches come to Lexington for the next four years . They just poured into , i mean , the whole state of Alabama , went air raid and About that time Leach had left and gone , got the job at Texas Tech and same thing happened love it with Texas coaches .
So he kind of had this groundswell from Georgia to Texas where people all of a sudden were saying hope , this is a day , this is a players like this , it's a more fun way to play . We can get athletes out . But looking back on it in , when I went to Coppers co-high school in 1986 , our four best athletes in school didn't play football And I sat them down .
I asked them why . They said because it's not even fun .
Well , all they were doing was having Oklahoma drill and playing wide ball up in town field , you know so then those guys wanted to throw and catch and make plays and so I showed them some film of what we were gonna do And I said , i said you , i said Billy , that could be you , you'd be the quarterback , you three guys be the receivers .
Anyway , three years later , when I left , they were the all district quarterback to all district receivers and one all state received . And It was . It was a Early test , but a successful one that yeah , this is fun to do it and you can , you can , you can recruit to this .
Yeah , and we learned that and pretty soon after Kentucky and and Mike being a tech on , everybody's wanted to it About the time you came along in high school . That's why everybody started spreading it out . I .
Right , yeah , i mean I , uh , i get that . That was awesome . You kind of brought up to a point I was I was going to make here . You said you know , when you were talking about Kentucky , what was it like coaching Tim couch ? I mean , because , again , i'm old enough to remember watching him at Kentucky
¶ Tim Couch and the XFL
and then into the pros , so what was it like being able to coach Tim couch ?
Oh he was . He was the most fun of all the guys I've had . He's up there . I mean maybe the most fun one because he was so dedicated .
I used to go over to the athletic center during the year , like in June or July , you know , and I would go jog , you know , work out , and I remember numerous times going over there And I'd look out on the field and there's Tim couch with a bag of balls , all by himself working on drops or working on accuracy , throwing it at the target , you know right .
And then you know , as the summer went on , later on he'd get the rest of the guys after with him He'd be having Pascal stuff like that . He , he was just so focused on on being a great quarterback and he really took to this offense . It was , it was a perfect match , really was , and he picked it up fast .
He I think my son Matthew had Matthew was his backup quarterback , so Matthew had a lot to do with that . I think his Matt . Matt backed up three all American quarterbacks to it Valhalla's , the state and Tim couch at Kentucky . So it's made him a pretty good football coach . I'm sure he had a lot to do , i think , with the early teaching for Tim .
But Tim was just . He had great pocket feed , he had great accuracy , he was brave as as a he was a warrior . I'll never forget the first year we were at UK . We played a game . Lsu came to town and they had Cecil the diesel and Ron Del Mealy and Kevin Falk . They had three , three tailbacks that could just pound you into submission .
And it was raining and they did pound us into submission . The only reason they didn't rush from where yards . They just got tired of running . But we were . We were getting beat by four touchdowns or so and it's the fourth quarter . Well , we kind of find our stride . We got behind early and then we kind of found our stride with him . We started scoring .
We got this one drive going , this in the fourth quarter and one of our tackles missed and the big defensive in comes rushing in the team , hits him right in the jaw , helmet to jaw , and I looked at it . I was standing about 10 yards from it . I saw it . I was , oh my God . So I'm an idiot . I can't believe I left him in here this long .
And he came to the sideline and he had a jaw like this . I said you gonna be OK , i think I broke my fucking jaw . Oh , what am I doing ? I'm an idiot . So he goes over by the trainer and sits down . I get the . I go and get the backup warmed up and finish the game . You know , i look up , we get the box .
Somehow or another , we managed to stop them . I think they , like I said , i think they just got tired of running and we get the ball back with about two minutes left And I look around , i'm standing . There's Tim standing right next to me .
He's ready to go in again And he takes us the last two minutes and we score touchdown , takes a beautiful two minute drive down the field And that carried over the next year because the next two years we beat them and we had a great win down the next year . Tim's last year with us in 98 .
We had a thrilling win down there in Baton Rouge And I think that those last couple of drives of that first first game we played him , because the next year is all the same players . I mean they beat us by four touchdowns one year . The next year we go down there and beat them at their place . So it's a growth deal .
You know a mental thing , and I think Tim was so tough , he didn't , he didn't , you know , he didn't go over there to hide on the sidelines and hide behind a bruise or an injury or whatever it was on his jaw , and then he built , taught it . He did that . So , anyway , that's one of the things I remember about him , about coaching .
He was just a great competitor .
Yeah , i mean , i remember , you know , you know , just even watching him on TV and stuff like that , you could just tell he was one of those guys that was toughest nails and just wasn't going to put up with anything , especially at the quarterback position .
You don't see that much , you know doing what we did at the time too . I mean , most people were . They were . If they were throwing it 25 or 30 times a game , that was considered a lot . Right , yeah , tim , tim was throwing it 50 times a game .
Yeah , absolutely It . just it shows his grit . But also you know , you know you've coached with Bob Stoops at the XFL level , you know for the Dallas Renegades as a coordinator . Take the XFL I'm intrigued by the XFL and you know how it's , it's coming along and everything like that . So one take me about .
you know Bob Stoops and you know just the XFL in general , because at first I was against it . But the more and more I watch it and you know I'm really intrigued . So take me through a little bit of that .
Well , it's one of the reasons we're starting up this international football alliance too , because I think back in the 80s , before you were born , when I was coming along as a young coach , the USFL took root , you know , and played in the spring and in the summer And at first fans were .
I don't know if this will work , i don't know if I'm going to watch football that time of year , but then the USFL was so much fun to watch that it caught on . And then , every since then , of course , they they fought famously folding because they tried to move to the fall and compete against CNFL , which that was gonna happen .
But Every since then , football people have thought there is a niche there . Yeah , there is a yeah There . There's people that just don't want to watch the NBA , you know , and and there's people that just get bored watching baseball , and they , there is a niche there for football .
So the XFL I thought our version of it with , with Vince McMahon owned it right in 2020 was really coming along . We had great crowds I Mean , i know , in Dallas we were that little stadium We're playing in holds 20 . I think we were . We were capacity most games . Seattle was drawn 30 , st Louis was drawn over 30 . Houston was drawn over 25 or 30 .
I mean , most of the franchises were drawing , they weren't just on TV , they were selling tickets and there was a lot of excitement with it . And then , of course , like everybody , the nation COVID hits , burn us the whole thing .
I think the version of it now They , they need to get out of this hub deal they're doing , having everybody practice in Arlington Texas all week long and then get on the same airplane and fly to your game side . I don't think that's real smart . Guys like you don't have a chance to interview the players , you don't have a chance to go practice and watch .
The local newspaper doesn't have any . You know what are they gonna write about . Well , you know , i did a zoom meeting with somebody . You know I mean , there's not that , that excitement that you have around a team that builds between Monday , tuesday , wednesday , thursday and then , you know , game day Getting there .
You just , you just don't have that vibe because You know the Houston , the Houston Team , is not in Houston , they're in Arlington practice and they're not gonna show up in Houston until the day before . So I I really hope that they , that They get rid of that idea . That's not a very good idea . The USFL is the same thing they're . They're playing in hubs .
They've got four hubs . It's kind of like we did in the spring league We played two hubs in spring like they're playing in four now . Let's say I got two teams in each other , but you know , the New Orleans team's never been in New Orleans . I mean , it's a Pittsburgh team . They've never been to Pittsburgh .
I mean , i just think they're Logistically , they and and marketing wise , they're missing a lot of , they're missing out on a lot of fans .
That's why we're excited about our deal , because we're gonna be in , we're gonna have teams in Mexico and teams in Texas is two places where people are gonna show up for games and We're gonna they're gonna be excited to watch us plug .
Yeah , absolutely , absolutely . I didn't know that about the exit , felt that they're all kind of in hubs right now . That like that . That doesn't . Yeah , that's a huge miss by like anybody who knows Anything . Put these teams in their cities , it'll draw a buzz around .
Doing that in 2020 . But then they you know , mcmahon sold them and and Dwayne Johnson bought them , along with Redbird capital of Danny Garcia . It's different ownership , it's different , different concept now .
Right and I get that . Everybody has their own vision They want to do . But I mean , i think After this , you know , when they go back to the drawing board , i think that's one thing they did , like you said they need to look at . I hope somebody from the XFL hears this here's this when it airs and they can make that .
Just Yeah , you look at their crowds .
You're not drawing right .
Yeah , because nobody knows where they're at . They're all in all Arlington . I mean they get them out into the cities .
Yeah , exactly the players You know it's . I mean this has been true for me at small college , high school , the SEC . People relate to people . They don't necessarily relate to organizations and those players being there all week long , no matter what you're talking about , that people want to support those players Absolutely because they get to know them .
They have friends , they have girlfriends , they have parents , they have , you know , acquaintances . I Think they've missed the boat on that part .
Yeah , I'm sure it'll get better . I hope it does . But I want to talk about you mentioned it there the I is the IFL IFA IFA . Take me through that . What are your plans for that and how we were looking to get that rolling ?
Right now I'm working for the league where there's gonna be some those players out there that want to give it a shot . We're gonna have some work , try out camps starting next month . We'll do that through September .
We'll have several camps all over , all over the United States and in Mexico , and We're kind of , you know , in in the CFL They're allowed to have 16 or 17 Americans and then the equal amount of Canadian players . We're kind of mirroring that idea . But we've got we're gonna have 20 of Americans and 33 Internationals .
And we've got some deals cut with other leagues the European League , there's a . There's a pretty good football in Japan these days . The Japanese one Partner with us . A lot of the arena teams are partnering with us .
So we're gonna provide a place from Training camp in May and then play in June and July , have a championship game in in August and We'll have we'll have good crowds , we will . We we've got we're having team in Cancun , guadalajara , chihuahua , and then there's gonna be a press conference later this month and they're gonna announce the American teams .
But it's a , it's an American entity , an American LLC , but we chose to try to bridge the gap with Mexico Because they've got over a hundred years of playing football down there too , and and they've got some real enthusiastic fans that That you know .
There's 97 million people in in the nation of Mexico that tuning to the NFL every week , and that's a lot of football fans .
Yeah , absolutely , we're having it at our seasons , or we kind of aligned it So it's after the soccer season is over , with the only the only thing we're really competing with is is the Mexican Pro Baseball , and So we we think it's got a chance to be really successful .
Well , i look forward to checking that out for sure , because that's IFA .
They can go on our website and we'll have . We'll have some of these camps , these crowd camps announced for the Players that want to give it a shot . But you know it's , it's pro eligible guys . Basically , what we're trying to do is provide a chance for them to get some film and and move to the next level if they're good enough .
Yeah , that that's awesome . I got a couple final questions for you . One real big one . We had , you know , a guest on Ernest Wilson . So how do you know You know Ernest , and where did that relationship start ?
it really started through Mike Leach . Ernest became friends with Mike and then Mike told me about him and I got to be . He just had always been interested in what we did on offense and And we uh I went to New Mexico State in 2005 to be the head coach and I hired Ernest to be on my staff and be the recruiting coordinator .
We've developed a great friendship ever since Then . He was on my staff two springs ago when we won the Spring League , which was the forerunner of the USFL
¶ Football Coaching and Passion
that's playing right now . He's a great person and a great coach and I enjoy being around him . If I can get him to Mexico , he's going to come with me there .
You're trying to get him to Mexico . That's awesome . I loved talking to Ernest . It was a great time to just sit and even though we had to do it via Zoom here like we have and everything like that , you could just feel the passion he has for the game of football .
He's got an interesting background too . He's done it at a lot of varied levels . He's been a head and arena coach . He's coached with a lot of great guys . He's coached in Division 1 . He's been a coordinator and a head coach in smaller colleges . He's been just about every level there is . He's a great .
He's a handy guy to have around because he just knows everybody and he knows what to do .
Yeah , it was great talking to him and I needed to know that relationship that y'all had . That was just what things . When we scheduled for you to be on , i was like I got to know how him and Ernest got together and got hooked up .
It was just my own curiosity coming in there , but as someone who went to a Division 3 college , what was it like coaching at a D3 bowl game ?
Oh , those were fun . I mean we had , we made the play at McMurray , we made the playoffs , we got beat in the quarterfinals one year and then the next year we coached on a bowl game and we actually beat a D2 school , we beat Southern Arkansas . But those guys they're fun , they're like these pro guys .
These guys were doing it for the love of the game and they were just immensely fun to be around and really wanting to learn and very much Division 3 and Division 2 turns out a lot of future football coaches , because the guys that play at that they're not worried about how big the stadium is , they're not worried about you know , they're NIL or anything like
that , they just want to play ball And to me that's always the fun guys to coach .
Yeah , i mean I went to D3 . I loved going to the games . It was a lot of fun And you could tell that those guys were playing because they wanted to play football and they loved football .
They didn't care who was up in the stands , like there was times , even at little old Bethany College where I went , you know , i was the sports director for the radio station . I had to call the games and everything like that , and I know I'm sitting up there and I'm looking down .
I'm like man , there's like 10 people here And these guys are out here playing like there's 30,000 people here . It is amazing to see , like just to be able to watch that , and the passion that they still bring even though nobody was in the stands .
Now they don't . They don't . That's not what makes them tick . That's why I think , like you're saying , you have to wear a lot of hats at that level And I think a lot of coaches and athletic administrators get trained at schools like that because it is like a apprenticeship while you're there , because you do a lot of different things .
You know , i remember at Iowa , wesley and I had a bunch of . I had a Polynesian coach named Mike Finogos on my staff and he coached with Ernest and I too at Mexico State . But Mike was always going to find poly guys for us to recruit And a lot of those guys are really great players . They end up at smaller schools just because they got overlooked .
But Mike's job was the work study was . Mike was in charge of cutting and lighting the field each week . So about after Thursday's practice Mike would get all the poly guys out there and they'd get the lawn mowers out in the machines . The fields would get painted right here where we go . You know It was just .
It was a little business on the side right there . Absolutely . I always enjoyed watching all that and getting those players involved in the in the workings . How do you put on a football game , you know right . I mean you got to have a . There's a lot of people go into a football game .
They don't have anything to do with being on the field And so at schools like that you get a chance to to , you get a chance to promote that And , and I think it's great training for future coaches and athletic players .
Absolutely , and you know . and one final question for you here , because we are running a little bit short on time here and where are you coaching now And what ? what do you got going on now ?
Well , I'm working . This past year I've spent the whole year working on the IFA and we're we're a Noel Mazzoni and I are are doing this , and there's going to be some other coaches named . We haven't worked out the assignments totally . Who's going to coach who ? So that's where kind of where we're at right now .
We're just pulling the league together and getting enough names to have , you know , a pool of players that we can draft , And so we're spending a lot of time with that and then getting to know the owners of the various franchises . So hopefully I'll be a head coach at one of those .
All right , well , i'll definitely be looking for it and you definitely got to let me know , because I tell every guest this and they they think I'm bullshitting them and I'm really not . but I follow every single organization , team , college , no matter what it is guests that come on this show .
I have , i have a lot , a lot of notifications that go off on my phone on a daily basis because I'm trying to keep up with everybody .
Well , there you go . That's great And that's good . I commend you for doing it , because it's good to get the word out there . It's become a lot easier now that we have podcasts and stuff like this than it used to be , right , but you're doing a great service for the game .
Yeah , absolutely . I appreciate that And you know , definitely let me know where you're coaching and because I know just with you , know just your resume alone and everything the work you're putting in . Now you're going to be coaching one of these teams and you need to let me know because I'm going to follow them and make sure I keep up with old . How mummy .
Well , it gets you it gets you going , michael , i appreciate it , not a problem , but that is going to do it for this week's episode of the ride home rants podcast . Be sure to peep all the sponsors that you heard at the beginning of the show in tactical brotherhood , reaper or apparel my own personal merch store these stupid should hurt merch store .
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