CHARLOTTE – The password is Louisa. If you know, you know.
And it’s the only way to soothe a parched throat in a ballroom-nee-football-laboratory on the second floor of this downtown Charlotte hotel, steps from the convention center that’s home to the AFCA’s annual cattle call for the second time in three years.
Louisa, Kentucky, is hometown of Gerad Parker, event organizer, as well as Dontae Wright, defensive coaching veteran with stops at West Virginia and now as Troy’s defensive coordinator, among many others. Too small to be the cradle of coaches, Louisa’s perhaps the baby-blanket of coaches.
Here, pretense is as welcome as replay review; which is to say, not at all.
It is football talking and teaching; tribute to the late Phil Ratliff.
Demonstrations. Xs and Os. Teach tape.
The Rat Pack is back, again, for this annual gathering closing in on a decade, sans the COVID-axed convention.
Troy head coach and ringleader Parker is setting the tone in a room full of power conference assistants, FBS and FCS head coaches, Tre Lamb and Jeff Farris among them, and coaches from all levels.
“The ‘Why’ to do this is I have a lotta good friends that I love and want to help in this profession in any way that I can, and to pay tribute to Phil,” Parker says. “Make sure you treat this profession the right way, because it will take care of you if you do that.
“But if you’re an asshole, you’re out. If you take care of it and treat it the right way, it will take care of you.”
As its organizer, Parker keeps the flow loose and the room looser.
This year, though, before things ramp up, Parker wants a picture to send his wife, Kandi. There are no formal invitations; just a text with instructions in the days leading into the event.
It becomes standing room only.
“Would you look at this,” Parker texts.
The evening usually features five or six speakers and always hits on all three phases of the game. There are some audibles this night, because taking care of the game, as Parker intones this crowd, doesn’t always mean a guarantee of job security.
Simply put, some dudes miss the event because they’re interviewing for jobs.
Carter Barfield, Lamb’s new special teams coordinator at Tulsa and a former Florida State staffer seen as among the sport’s top, up-and-coming teams experts, leads off the event.
“Make an IMPACT,” Barfield says, noting Parker is among those to serve in his wedding. “Most of the people in this room either worked at UT-Martin (under Jason Simpson, his coaching tree spreading coast-to-coast roots), or you wished you had.”
Barfield doesn’t want to present as some Xs and Os guru; he’s comfortable enough to share what he believes helps set apart his special teams units. He preaches competition in every drill, and shows a speed-zone drill to emphasize the point.
He also stresses humility at the position; he isn’t a former kicker, punter, specialist. He’s an eager learner and teacher, though.
“I think there’s something to be said about finding a way to coach those guys and not get intimidated about what you don’t know in that world,” he says. “I’ve learned enough about kicking and snapping to be dangerous.
“Two things come up in my mind in what I’m looking for in a specialist and how to manage them: Mentality as a tough, hard worker, reliable, attention to detail, good teammate. I want to integrate these guys with the rest of the team.”
Barfield, sharing his units practice at minimum game-winning field goals at least once a week in practice. closes with nuggets that leave virtually everyone in the room taking notes: Provide direction, provide information and provide organization.
“Remember, I’m the caddy – I’m not the swing coach.”
Geep Wade is following Barfield, and his arrival brings a Smoothie King blend of impeccable teachings with irreverent comedy.
But in the days in Charlotte that follow this Sunday affair, a de facto greeting emerges from those at the clinic: S.T.A.
It is stolen from Wade, of course, because it is his priceless description of how he coaches his Georgia Tech offensive line and all the ones prior to his arrival on The Flats.
“S.T.A.,” Wade drawls, “means to Sandpaper That Ass.
“The biggest thing, and my boss, Brent Key, is a former offensive lineman and offensive line coach, what we’ve done is recruit guys you want to be around. Tough (mudders), guys that you fight through things. Adversity is gonna hit us all. Injuries, games where something goes wrong; you got to get guys that truly believe in what you believe in, guys that are fun to be around. We’re all in this together, and I believe in what I believe in.”
The Yellow Jackets produce the ACC’s No. 2 rushing offense in 2024, 187 yards per game and 5 ypc, en route to another bowl berth under Key; they knock out three ranked foes along the way.
“They played with a physicality and an edge,” Notre Dame and Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Marcus Freeman says after the Irish’s late-October win. “I got a lot of respect for (them).”
Wade attacks coaching the way his lines attack the opposition; letting up is never an option. The whistle carries an echo for a reason.
“Every day, we coach players and make ‘em think they’re better than they are,” Wade, sharing a moment in time where he’s cutting his own wooden boards to have the proper width for teaching his guys to drive their backside-foot, commands. “That’s how we’ve got to get em to play.
“It’s the mentality of outplaying people. From fingertips to launch, we want to slice their asses like butter.”
The final session the reporter observes is Dave Plungas, assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at FCS program Robert Morris.
He’s sharing defensive philosophies, sure, but also the need for self-scouting, in-season or otherwise, after seeing the firsthand benefits in the turnaround at Robert Morris, a program entering 2025 fresh off its first winning season this decade.
“We want to be simple, flexible and adapt to who you have nowadays,” says Plungas, a former University of Albany standout and member of that program’s first-ever automatic NCAA FCS Playoffs qualifier in 2011.
Plungas drills down on the self-scout, its importance in the moment and in big-picture program assessments.
“You are building a story every week … it is a new chapter, not a new book,” he says. “And you’re not trying to write a new book each week. I was a shitty coordinator early on. You are adding to the story each week, not writing a new book.
“When we hit our 2024 bye week, we asked, ‘Is it personnel? Is it scheme? Is it fundamentals.’”
Plungas remembers the coaches identifying solutions.
“Some of it was personnel, some was tackling; we had one DB, he was struggling tracking the ball,” Plungas recalls. “So, we made switches in-season.”
The tangible result? A defense allowing 26 points per game through the season’s opening five games closes the year allowing less than 16 ppg with three shutouts across the final seven contests.
“We made adjustments and had 47 less missed tackles in 2024 vs ’23 and played one more game,” says Plungas, noting the Colonials went from 63 TFLs to 88 and 15 sacks to 34 year over year.
“We want to limit runners’ options and maximize contact. Do simple better.”