published on September 05, 2024 in post

How Jim Harbaugh, Nick Saban and Mike Leach fill out their coaching staffs

It’s the first Friday in February and the search is in high gear. The mission: to replace the coach who sparked the most improved unit in major college football in 2021.

Mike Macdonald spent one season at Michigan and helped turn a backsliding program into one that shocked the sports world by winning its first Big Ten title in 17 years en route to making the College Football Playoff. But then in late January, the Wolverines’ defensive coordinator left Ann Arbor to return to his former team with a big promotion, taking over the Baltimore Ravens defense.

Almost no one around the Big Ten had heard of 34-year-old Macdonald when Jim Harbaugh hired him off brother John’s staff to replace Don Brown. Macdonald had no experience as a coordinator, but Harbaugh trusted the intel he got from his brother and the feel he got from Macdonald. Replacing him would be as critical as finding him. This time, as Harbaugh set up his search for the Wolverines’ new DC, he had some unique directives he hoped would help sort out the candidates.

In addition to getting to know each coach, Harbaugh wanted the candidates to have a big-picture plan readied for the Wolverines’ defensive personnel in 2022: what they’d keep from Michigan’s 2021 system and why, what they’d change and why; as well as have some early game-plan thoughts, specifically for Michigan State on first and second downs and Ohio State on third downs.

In the past, Harbaugh had hired coordinators without even formally interviewing them. But allowing 6.3 yards per play on first down in a 37-33 loss to archrival Michigan State can change a man.

“Knowing Jim, every coordinator he’s ever hired has probably been a different process because it’s probably what he thinks is important at that particular moment,” one former Wolverines assistant told The Athletic.

One of this year’s candidates, Wisconsin linebackers coach Bobby April III, was flying down to Orlando, Fla., for a family trip to Disney World when Michigan called him about the vacancy. That meant pulling an all-nighter, doing a deep dive into Michigan’s returning personnel and what they did under Macdonald to be ready for the Zoom with Harbaugh and the Wolverines defensive staff. Harbaugh’s dad, Jack, a former college coach, would also be on the call the following Monday at 9 a.m.

Zooms can be an awkward medium for coaching interviews, particularly because of technology’s fickle nature. The cost and convenience of Zoom, though, has enabled coaches to meet with more candidates. “Zoom has changed everything,” one coach said. “I interviewed 13 guys for a quality control job. It was awesome.”

The coach Harbaugh ultimately hired — a former colleague of Macdonald’s with the Ravens, Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Jesse Minter — was not one many observers viewed as a front-runner. Vanderbilt ranked No. 120 in the country in 2021 in fewest yards per play allowed — although the Commodores’ talent, by SEC standards, was underwhelming. More telling: Minter, a 2015 Broyles Award nominee for his work as Georgia State’s DC, was already well-versed in the system Macdonald had brought with him from Baltimore, save a few new concepts that had been worked up in Ann Arbor. With Michigan beginning spring football just two weeks later, finding a coach who spoke the same language seemed like a likely move.

For April and the other candidates who didn’t get the offer, the interview process was still a huge opportunity because they might’ve impressed someone else in the room. What often happens in these job interviews is more arbitrary than the schemes that, sometimes, get drawn up in them. This is the story of the quirkiest process in football: how coaches actually do their hiring.

UCLA coach Chip Kelly likes to first see new candidates ‘on the board.’ (Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Mike Bellotti got his players involved. They liked a little-known guy from New Hampshire.

From Harbaugh to Nick Saban to Sean McVay to Mike Leach, head coaches each have their own way of filling out their staffs.

“There’s not a set way to do it,” UCLA head coach Chip Kelly told The Athletic. “It depends on who it is and what it is.” If Kelly doesn’t know the candidate, he’ll want to see him “on the board,” which is coachspeak for drawing up Xs and Os and talking through coverages, fronts and anything else that could come up, like how to attack a particular formation, blitz or concept.

“You better have an understanding of what this guy knows, football-wise,” he says. But the Xs and Os are often just a starting point. When Kelly was a little-known assistant coach at New Hampshire 15 years ago, he interviewed for Oregon’s offensive coordinator job. Ducks head coach Mike Bellotti incorporated a unique aspect to the search — he had all of his quarterbacks take part in the interviews.

“I had to teach the quarterbacks something,” Kelly said. “I had a quarterback meeting. Bellotti and all the other coaches sat in the back of the room while all the quarterbacks sat in the front row and I took them through a typical meeting. The good thing from Mike was, he didn’t put a lot of parameters on it. I could run it any way I wanted to run it. I installed a route. Reads, the protection. For me it was a layup because that’s what we do.”

When Kelly entered the room, he told all the quarterbacks to sit up straight in their seats as if it were a regular QB meeting without the Ducks coaches observing. Nate Costa, now Nevada’s quarterbacks coach, was one of the quarterbacks in the room that day.

“Chip was so energetic. He was a fast talker. He used a lot of acronyms. It was classic Chip,” Costa said. “I was just blown away. His was the best interview by far. I just didn’t know if he was going to get the job because he was from New Hampshire.”

Another quarterback, Justin Roper, now the offensive coordinator at Furman, said Kelly’s “common sense logic” stood out in the meeting.

“He was very unique in that way,” Roper said. “Started with QB depth in the shotgun putting ‘toes at 5 yards’ not heels, because he said, ‘I never understood why people put heels at 5, you can’t look down and see your heels, you can see your toes.’ Things like that.”

Want a coaching job with Mike Leach? You might not talk football.

The Mike Leach interviewing process might be the most unique in football. “You’re not gonna talk football,” said one former Leach assistant. “And if you do, it’ll be very little. He’d interview guys and they have their presentations, their PowerPoints ready, and he just talks and talks. Then, he’ll say, ‘Tell me about this.’

‘Coach, we ran zone turn and —’ then he goes, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool,’ and all of a sudden, he starts talking about the war in Afghanistan. He knows his system, but I don’t think he wants to know anything else. He’d get sidetracked so easy.”

Another coach Leach hired arrived at the football office by noon but didn’t see Leach until 5 p.m. The staff just tried to keep the candidate occupied. “It’s not like Mike was gonna come in early,” said the coach. “They were charged with killing time. Then, when it starts, you’re there in a suit and tie and got your video available, up on the white board ready to let it rip, and then he goes, ‘Hey, listen …’

“It could go sideways with him real quick, and maybe not in a bad way. I don’t remember drawing up a dang thing. It doesn’t get any stranger than that.”

The Leach conversations have meandered so much at times more than a few of his hires weren’t sure whether they’d actually been offered the job. One Texas Tech candidate was pretty sure he’d gotten the job, but had a moment of hesitation when he showed up to the office and Leach greeted him, asking, ‘What are you doing here?’

“Well, I hope I work here.” Turns out, Leach was just surprised the staffer was able to get to Lubbock and start so quickly.

That assistant, longtime Leach colleague Dave Emerick, Mississippi State’s chief of staff, now makes sure to give the coaches a follow-up call because he knows his boss can be a little vague with the details.

When Leach was at Texas Tech, one of the defensive coaches he interviewed, the late Carlos Mainord, who had previously worked as a defensive coordinator for the Red Raiders in addition to being Miami’s defensive backs coach under Jimmy Johnson, left perplexed about whether he was offered a job. Mainord called Sonny Dykes, a young Tech assistant he’d known for years because of his relationship with his dad, Spike Dykes, the former TTU coach.

“Should I get Jimmy (Johnson) or Spike to call him?” Mainord asked.

“Nah,” Sonny told him. “Don’t get them to call. You should just show up to work like you’ve got the job, and he’ll get so uncomfortable about it that he’s not gonna tell you to go.”

Mainord did just that and worked as Tech’s new safeties coach, spending the next half-decade in Lubbock.

“It really was the Costanza approach,” said a former Red Raider coach.

“There was actually a method behind the madness,” said a former Leach assistant. “It was all about fit. Mike had his way of doing things, and it was very different. Everything about his program is different, including our schedule. So it’s more about, is this guy flexible? Can he adapt? I think he looked at it like, I don’t want to hire someone who is gonna be a pain in the ass.

“The most important quality was, do you believe in what we’re doing and can you adapt? All of us poo-poo Mike, but looking back, you realize, ‘Shit, that was really smart.'”

Sean McVay likes to have an open dialogue with his candidates. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)

Sean McVay wants to learn from you.

Four years ago, Liam Coen was a 32-year-old FCS offensive coordinator at Maine who scored an interview with Sean McVay. The Rams had an assistant wide receivers coach vacancy and Coen got the interview because he’d coached with Rams assistant Shane Waldron on the UMass staff.

“Hey, what’s your favorite play-action?” McVay asked Coen. Coen drew it up on the board and the Rams offensive coaches discussed it. Then, McVay had Coen draw up a double-mug look with a split front; the D-line had both inside guys as 3-techniques; the outside guys were lined up as 5s. Both linebackers were mugged-up. The defensive backs were in a single-high look with threats from the safety and the nickel.

“How would you guys block this specific blitz in your 6-man protection?” McVay asked. It’s a defense that Mike Zimmer had given the NFL fits with. Coen stared at the board. That defensive look hadn’t come down to the Colonial Athletic Association.

“I don’t really know,” Coen said, stumped.

“Don’t worry about it,” McVay said in his upbeat tone. “I’m just trying to pick your brain.”

The more McVay and Coen chatted, the Coen realized the head coach tries to learn from every person he talks to. Back then, the Rams didn’t have a good answer for that defense, either. Coen said the interview with McVay felt more like an open dialogue of guys just talking ball.

Coen landed the job and spent three seasons there before becoming Kentucky’s offensive coordinator in 2021 and then returning this offseason as the Rams OC. He said this helped him see NFL life in a new light. With the rigors of recruiting, college coaches often feel like they are part football coach, part sales rep. In the NFL, there’s more time and resources to do such a deep dive into “ball” — the wrinkles on the Xs and Os and the details in addition to the fundamentals and technical work.

“It was such a different way to learn,” Coen said. “It’s just so much more time and focus on it, like getting a Ph.D. in coaching.”

Kevin Sumlin worked out one coach’s contract on a bar napkin. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

Don’t get yabba-dabba-dooed. Watch the magic unfold.

Being impressive on the board is important, but it’s also a reason a lot of coaches misfire on their hires.

“You can get fooled and get yabba-dabba-dooed,” said one Power 5 coordinator. “It’s one thing to clinic football. It’s another thing to teach football because those Xs and Os are actually real people and you have to explain to them the things they have to do and fix. So much of it is behavioral and not schematic. They’re performing in adverse situations and they have to do it over and over again. You actually have to build his confidence and not just critique. That’s the magic.”

When Kevin Sumlin was in his first season as head coach at Texas A&M, he was watching Oklahoma film when he noticed the Sooners had all sorts of special teams problems with UTEP. The Miners blocked two kicks and had a couple of nice returns in a 24-7 loss.

“Who is coaching that?” Sumlin asked one of his quality control assistants about the UTEP special teams. Sumlin wrote down the name: Jeff Banks.

About a week after A&M’s season was over, Sumlin hired Banks, who had just taken a job at Virginia.

One of Sumlin’s first big hires as a head coach occurred after his initial choice to become his offensive coordinator at Houston, Noel Mazzone, left not long after accepting a job to become an assistant with the New York Jets. Sumlin had known Texas Tech offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen from recruiting the Houston area and invited him to Pub Fiction, a bar in midtown. The guy who ran the place closed out the whole front room for the new Cougars coach.

“It was just me and him sitting there,” Sumlin said. “It was about football, what the offense would look like; we’d just played WVU and saw how fast they’d gone. We talked philosophy; how we’d do it; and how much we could pay.”

How many beers did they drink that day?

“A few.”

Holgorsen wasn’t calling the offense at Tech, but he loved Houston. Except Houston was offering less money than he was making at Tech. Sumlin had sketched some potential salary ideas on a bar napkin. “I’ll tie your salary to a win bonus — just like what I’m doing,” Sumlin told him. “If we win 11 games, it’s this percentage. If we win 10 games, it’s this …”

The next morning, Sumlin took the napkin to athletic director Dave Maggard.

“You really feel strong about this?” Maggard asked.

“Yeah. I think that’s reasonable,” Sumlin replied.

Maggard ultimately told him, “Yeah, I think we can do it.”

Sumlin called Holgorsen back: “We’ve got your bar napkin for you to sign.”

Four years later, when Holgorsen was a head coach at West Virginia, he was back in Houston doing the hiring.

In 2011, he had one of the most explosive offenses in football. His team hung 70 on Clemson in the Orange Bowl, but the team that held them to the fewest points that season (21) was Pitt. Tony Gibson was the Panthers secondary coach and defensive pass game coordinator that season. Holgorsen flew Gibson, then working at Arizona, down to Houston on New Year’s Eve and picked him up in a stretch limo. They rode to Demeris Bar-B-Q, a favorite of Holgorsen’s. The place was closed. But Yanni Demeris, the owner, met the two coaches there.

“We played ‘Golden Tee’ for about six hours and drank a shit ton of beers,” said Gibson. “We never talked one down of football. I got back home and my wife said, ‘How’d that go?’ I said, ‘I have no idea. I got drunk with him.'”

Gibson got the job, and the Mountaineers defense improved from second-to-last in the Big 12 to No. 5 in his first season, to No. 4 and then No. 3.

“A high percentage of Dana’s interviews have taken place at Demeris Bar-B-Q,” said one of Holgorsen’s assistants.

How much do you share about your system and school? Nick Saban will get it out of you.

One of the trickiest aspects for the interviewee is just how much to share about their system or their school’s system.

“I’m very generic,” said one run game coordinator. “I’m not giving up my stuff.”

Another veteran defensive coordinator who had been interviewing with a coach well-known for interviewing a ton of candidates for any position — and getting all their drills and info — wasn’t sure what to make of the intentions of his future boss. “I thought he didn’t want to hire me because you wouldn’t hear from him for a while. I’m thinking, ‘Is he trying to string me along for information? I’m not gonna tell you what we do till you hire me.’”

In 2007, Sumlin was a co-offensive coordinator at Oklahoma and interviewed for the Miami OC job. Randy Shannon was the Canes’ first-year head coach and the Miami defensive staff took part in the interview. There was one awkward aspect of the sit-down: The Canes were playing the Sooners later that fall.

“Their whole defensive staff is trying to go through red zone — ‘What do you like on third-and-4-6?’ What are your top three plays?’ I said, ‘Guys, come on. We play you in Game 2.’ Randy was really respectful about it, but they were trying to go right down our call sheet.”

Sumlin didn’t get the job, but his Sooners whipped Miami, 51-13 — the Canes’ worst loss in a decade.

No coach, though, is better known for downloading prospective coaches than Nick Saban. The combination of him being the winningest, and most respected, guy in the game, along with his almost constant staff turnover and an enormous bench of analysts means there’s a perpetual market for staff interviews.

“Saban’s the best at that,” said one former Tide assistant about the coach’s penchant for drawing out X and O intel from outside sources. One example: In 2012 Saban, knowing that secondary coach Jeremy Pruitt was leaving to go to Florida State, had five weeks to get Alabama ready for Notre Dame in the title game. “He was bringing in all types of guys asking them about Notre Dame’s formations. He’s asking them questions, ‘What would you do to stop this; what would you do to stop that?’ Those discussions stimulate your mind.”

Said another former Alabama assistant: “He’s not always interviewing for a job; he’ll do it just to find out about what you’re doing on offense.”

In 2017, Saban invited former Ole Miss offensive coordinator Dan Werner to Tuscaloosa for an interview. With Lane Kiffin off to Florida Atlantic, Alabama needed an OC. Werner had transformed Bo Wallace into one of the 10 most prolific passers in SEC history. He also sparked the Rebels to break most of the school’s offensive records and had directed a unit that led the SEC in scoring and total offense in 2015. More significantly, in two of three meetings from 2014 to 2016 against Saban’s defense, the Rebels averaged more than 36 points per game.

Werner, like most visiting coaching candidates, met in a big room with the Tide staff. Seemingly everyone is in there, some 30 dudes or so. Offensive coaches, defensive coaches, analysts, grad assistants. Saban. You give a presentation. They ask questions. Lots of questions.

“If the guy is doing a really good job, (Saban) is constantly pulling guys out of the room: ‘What do you think? How’s he doing?’”

Getting a window into the mind of a coach attacking his defense is insightful, exhilarating and gratifying. Ole Miss had extensively used RPOs before most SEC programs did to that extent. Saban didn’t just want to know about the Rebels’ RPO plays, he wanted to know their thinking behind them. He put on the 2015 game when Ole Miss defeated eventual national champion Crimson Tide, 43-37.

“What made you call this?” Saban asked Werner. “What’d you guys see?”

Usually, this is the part where some coaches get a little queasy. How much of your stuff, if any, do you share? Werner’s thought process: “I was trying to get the job, and I didn’t have a job at the time.”

Another Alabama coach in the room was amused at seeing his boss’ reaction to Werner’s response.

“He was baffled that was all Hugh Freeze did on offense,” said the coach. “It was so simple. These guys were going up and down the field on us, and all it was is, ‘If you were lined up 2-High (safeties), we’re gonna check to a run. If the nickel was inside, we were gonna run an out route.‘

Said Saban: “No, seriously, tell us what you do.”

Said Werner: “No, really, that’s all we do.”

Before a candidate is brought into the building, Saban has attempted to dig into the coach like he’s an upcoming opponent. “Everybody in the building is on call, trying to reach out and find out about how this person works with other people,” said a former Tide assistant. “He’s asking, who knows people at this place? At that place? Who has he recruited? Who’s recruited against him?”

If you’re hoping to land a position coaching job at Alabama, you’d better convince Saban and his staff that you can own your room. There have been a few hiring misfires that have only lasted a season in Tuscaloosa because they either couldn’t connect with their players or didn’t have their respect. One former Tide staffer recalled a veteran position coach with a strong resume who everyone in the building seemed to know couldn’t handle the personalities in his room. “It was a disaster,” said the staffer.

“The biggest thing in today’s world: Can they manage a room in terms of discipline, accountability and building relationships?” added that coach. “You’ve gotta have their trust and be building equity every day. (Saban) wants to know, can they be the head coach of their own room with all of the different personalities in there and the different ways individuals learn?”

When Saban’s pulling staffers out of interviews, that is what he’s hoping to get opinions on. One position coach’s first day on the job happened while Saban had brought in a prospective receivers coach. The new Tide assistant listened to him talk with the OC when the boss pulled him out of the room.

“Let me see you,” Saban said.

“Am I gonna get fired on the first day?” the new hire thought to himself.

“What did you think of this guy?” Saban asked. The assistant didn’t have much of an opinion yet. “I didn’t know the guy from a can of paint. Saban goes, ‘Hey, let me tell you something. I’m not worried about what they know. Is he able to articulate what he’s trying to say? Does he have presence?’” Saban proceeded to give his new guy a dissertation about owning a room. “If this guy doesn’t have a confident feel to him, and if he gets in a room with strong personalities, they’re gonna see through this guy. It’s not about, ‘Does this guy know the best pass play versus Cover-2?’ It’s, ‘Is this guy a fit for our program?’”

“I learned a lot from that,” the assistant said. “It made sense. Guys can wow you with their detail on the board, but the higher you go, and it’s starting to trickle with this (transfer) portal, you’re dealing with stronger personalities. These five-stars have been told since they’re 7 that they’re the best thing out there. If you don’t have their respect, they’re not gonna work the technique that you’re teaching them. That presence thing is a huge piece.”

Sometimes in the process, where discretion becomes a bigger issue, Saban would meet a candidate at a private airport in a meeting room. One of his assistants might bring an easel with some poster board. “You gotta be demonstrative, loud and physical,” said one former Alabama coach. You also need to have a sense of what you might be worth financially.

“You gotta know what’s the going rate in your position,” the coach said. “Nick Saban ain’t gonna talk to my fucking agent, so the agent has to school you up on what you need to ask for. Young guys think it’s gonna pay more than it does. The guy who just had the job was making $425,000, but you have no experience and at your last job you were making $80,000.”

The chance to learn from Saban, as well as compete for a national title, makes it an opportunity few coaches could refuse. After all, there are 12 former Saban assistants from Alabama who are now FBS head coaches, and that doesn’t include Brian Daboll, who is now the New York Giants head coach, or his former LSU assistant Jimbo Fisher, now head coach at Texas A&M. In all, there are 24 former Saban assistants who have held FBS head coaching jobs and 10 who have been NFL head coaches.

Dan Lanning had been an assistant coach at Sam Houston when he interviewed for a defensive graduate assistant job at Alabama. Saban threw him a curveball. “He asked me for my philosophy on punt and punt coverage, which is something I never would’ve expected, and certainly not a question I was prepared for, but I did have an opinion,” Lanning said. “Still to this day, I have no idea if that answer on punt helped me get the job or not.

“The biggest thing I learned from Kirby (Smart) and Nick is that you’re not walking in with your PowerPoint presentation and leading the interview the way you think it’s gonna go. You’re not gonna follow a script. It’s, we’re gonna get you up and make you talk ball, get you outside your comfort zone.”

Lanning spent one season in Tuscaloosa before becoming the inside linebackers coach at Memphis and then reuniting with Smart at Georgia. Seven years after interviewing for that graduate assistant job at Alabama, Lanning, 36, is now the head coach at Oregon.

“I actually have very few voicemails saved on my phone, but the one voicemail that I still have is from an unknown number,” Lanning says. “It’s Nick Saban saying, ‘Hey Dan, this is Nick Saban. Give me a call when you get a chance.’ It was him offering me a GA job at Alabama.”

Editor’s note: The Athletic is going inside the 2021-22 college football coaching carousel with a series of stories on one of the wildest cycles ever.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Getty; Kevin C. Cox, Gregory Shamus, Jason O. Watson)

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