To say it’s been an odd journey for Kerry Coombs is understating it.
The former Ohio State defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator turned heel in Columbus (after a stint at Cincinnati) by choosing to come north to Ann Arbor and oversee special teams for the Michigan Wolverines. But, just days after Coombs was hired, the man who hired him, Sherrone Moore, was fired for cause, throwing everything up in the air.
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Coombs made his first public comments since not only becoming the special teams coach for Michigan football, but also since he was retained by new head coach Kyle Whittingham. Speaking with Jon Jansen on the In the Trenches Podcast, Coombs described the whirlwind of getting a new job and everything that happened since.
“I’m still staying in a hotel. I may do that forever,” Coombs said. “Coach Moore had called me on a Thursday. I came up on a Friday, met with him, and got offered a job on a Saturday. I showed up on Sunday, dropped my bags, had meetings, ran the special teams meeting, ran the practice Monday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday, we had a coaching change. And you can’t make that up.
“And so it was really interesting. I hadn’t known Coach Moore before I got here. I knew Tony Alford because I’d coached with him before. And really, that was it. And so it instantly, it became this huge vacuum, right? And frankly, Coach Poggi did such a wonderful job of filling that space for that entire time.
“And for me, because I had so much to do with teaching new things to our kids, I didn’t have time to really think about it. And it really didn’t hit me until we got down to the bowl site. And it was like, ‘You know what? You might not have a job here. You might’ve been a two-week wonder, and it’d be out looking for work.’ So, but it worked out that I’m getting to stay. I’m very excited about that. And so that first month was like no month I’ve ever had in my career, but now we’re back to normal.”
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And against Texas, it was clear there was a big turnaround. Special teams went from being a two-year liability to not only looking functional, but it also gave the Wolverines a fighting chance against the Longhorns. They made plays in the return game, they forced a turnover, they suddenly looked not just competent, but dominant. All in two weeks of Coombs taking over.
Coombs shared what he learned after coming to Ann Arbor and why things hadn’t been going well and what he changed in order to get things on the right track.
“Well, I think the thing was that they had struggled, and they knew they had struggled,” Coombs said. “There were some things that were easy for me to see. Haven’t done this for, for quite a while. The meetings were too long. The time on the field, relative special teams, frankly, was too long. There’s not a single kid that came to the University of Michigan to play right guard on punt. And if you don’t make it exciting and you don’t make it interesting and you don’t keep it pretty brief, you’re going to lose them, and they’re not going to want to play, and they’re not going to want to perform. They’ll do it because they’re part of the team, but you got to get them excited about doing it. And that’s one of the big challenges of special teams.
“And so we kind of revamped how meetings were being run and how we were doing things. We changed schemes, which I thought were, it was important to do. Because just doing the same things wasn’t going to work. We kept some things that — everything wasn’t bad, but for the most part, and my philosophy has always been that the schemes need to be simple and you need to rely on fundamentals, technique and effort, and that’s what we did and made it very simple for the bowl game and the kids kind of latched onto it and played so hard. They practiced hard, they embraced it. And even in the midst of all that chaos, which, you know, if you’re a young person, that was — for me, it was chaotic, but at least I’ve been around the bend a time or two. For those kids, that was something else. And for them to be able to focus on those, the particulars in special teams was remarkable to me. I was really pleased with how they played.”
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Michigan is now partaking in winter conditioning with eyes on what’s reported to be an April 18 spring game.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Kerry Coombs details whirlwind start, retention under Kyle Whittingham
