By Roscoe Nance
Nine of the 10 MEAC football teams are in the midst of wrapping up preseason training camps after having undergone a major facelift in the coaching ranks during the offseason. Half of the conference’s football-playing members have new head coaches, three of whom are in charge of their own program for the first time.
Changes in the conference were top to bottom. Some were expected; others not so much.
It was no big surprise when Florida A&M tabbed Willie Simmons to take over for Alex Wood or to see Morgan State let Fred T. Farrier go and replace him with Ernest T. Jones Jr., and it was not unexpected that Delaware State parted ways with Kenny Carter and named Rod Milstead as his replacement. They were the bottom three teams in the conference last season, finishing ninth, 10th and 11th, respectively.
However, hardly anyone saw it coming when Rod Broadway retired after leading North Carolina A&T State to an unbeaten season and the Black College National Championship; the Aggies picked their defensive coordinator Sam Washington, a long-time Broadway lieutenant, to take the reins.
North Carolina Central also stayed in-house when Jerry Mack flew from the Eagles’ nest to become an assistant at Rice after going 31-15 in four years. NCCU chose defensive coordinator Granville Eastman as its new leader.
Each of the five new coaches has his own set of challenges and unique circumstances to deal with while trying to establish himself in a conference that has been home to some of college football’s top coaches. However, Washington will probably come under the most scrutiny as Broadway’s successor at A&T.
The Aggies dominated the MEAC on the backend of Broadway’s seven-year tenure. They were 40-8 overall in his final four seasons, including 28-4 in the conference. They shared two MEAC titles, won one outright crown and had a second-place finish. They also won two Celebration Bowl championships and appeared in the FCS Playoffs once. Those are Grand Canyon-sized footsteps to follow in. But Washington isn’t fazed.
“My feet are big enough to meet the challenge,’’ he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Washington, 58, is a first-time head coach, but he is anything but a coaching novice. He has 30 years of experience as an assistant, including the last 11 on Broadway’s staffs at A&T and Grambling State. He was the Aggies’ defensive coordinator throughout the Broadway years. Don’t look for significant changes to the formula that has worked so well for the Aggies.
“Everything is in place for us,” he said. “All I have to do is keep everything in between the lines and keep people in the places where they need to be. I would hope A&T will be very similar, if not the same as in the past.”
Washington, a former All-SWAC defensive back at Mississippi Valley State who spent four seasons in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals, was instrumental in the Aggies’ rise to dominance in the MEAC. In three of his seven seasons, A&T has finished among the top-10 FCS teams in pass defense efficiency, including No. 1 in 2012. The Aggies have been the MEAC’s total defense and scoring defense leader four times in the past seven years. They have had the No. 1 total defense in the conference three straight seasons. A&T has also had the No. 1 rush defense in the conference six times in seven years.
“We played defense,” Washington said. “We can take the football and try to win the kicking game. That’s the formula that we’re sticking with.”
Eastman’s situation at North Carolina Central, A&T’s arch-rival, is much like Washington. Eastman is also a long-time defensive assistant who is a first-time head coach – albeit on an interim basis. He too inherits a program that is on solid footing because his predecessor was highly successful.
Mack, one of the three youngest coaches in Division I at age 33 when the Eagles hired him in 2013, won or shared the MEAC title three consecutive years during his four-year tenure; he compiled a 31-15 overall record and guided the Eagles to their first national ranking as an FCS Division I program in 2016.
“Jerry was a visionary, a big coach,” said Eastman. “He cast a big shadow on Durham with our success.”
Eastman and Mack are long-time friends, and as defensive coordinator he played a major role in helping Mack revive the Eagles’ program. But he says he’s not trying to be the second coming of Jerry Mack.
“I got to be myself,” he said. “I’m a little more old school, more traditional. I think that will serve us well as we continue to build the program in the way it needs to go. I’m big on chemistry and discipline and doing the little things right, not to say we didn’t under Coach Mack.”
That said, Eastman, 50, says he won’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to how the Eagles play. Offense was Mack’s forte, where Eastman has an affinity for defense. T. C. Taylor, the Eagles’ offensive coordinator the past four years, is still on hand, so Eastman sees no need to overhaul their attack.
“We’ll have a few wrinkles and do some things that are a little different from Coach Mack,” he said. “It would be very egotistical of me to say, ‘We’ve had some success and still have some parts in place’ and do a complete about-face with what we already in place. I would be trying to make a statement that’s not worth making.”
Eastman was born in Guyana and grew up in Canada, where was a three-year letterman as defensive back at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He made coaching stops as an assistant at York University (Toronto, Canada), Arkansas State (graduate assistant), Tiffin University and Austin Peay before Mack hired him as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator in 2014.
Simmons is the latest in a long line of coaches Florida A&M has turned to in its quest to recapture the Rattlers’ past glory. Simmons was a star prep athlete at Shanks High in Quincy, Fla., a 30-minute drive from FAMU’s campus in Tallahassee, and he began his coaching career as an assistant at Lincoln High in Tallahassee. He knows full well what the expectations are, and he embraces the notion of fans looking to him to return the Rattlers to respectability.
“It’s amazing to be part of a legacy that includes names Jake Gaither, Rudy Hubbard and Billy Joe,” he said. “It’s something one can only dream about when you get into the coaching profession; but a lot of responsibility comes with it.”
FAMU hasn’t had a winning season since 2011, and the Rattlers haven’t won the MEAC title since 2010. That’s an eternity for a program that has 37 conference championship trophies from the MEAC and SIAC in its trophy case.
“FAMU has a long history of winning,” Simmons said. “Fans expect to win. That’s my charge – to come in and do the right things to get the program back to that level of consistency where it is one of the premier programs in FCS football.”
Simmons, 37, developed a reputation as being one of the more creative and innovative offensive minds in college football during his three-year stint as head coach at Prairie View A&M, where he fashioned a 21-11 record, and a three-year run as offensive coordinator at Alcorn State. The Braves’ offense set numerous records en route to the 2014 Black College National Championship, and they were in the top among FCS schools in total offense (No. 8), rushing offense (No. 4) scoring (No. 2).
“We want to play with tempo,” Simmons said. “We pride ourselves on speed. We play in the state of Florida. We feel like we can go out and recruit fast student-athletes. You’re going to see an offense that plays with tempo, wants to establish the run, and creates an identity of being a tough football team.”
Milstead is one of the most decorated football players in Delaware State’s history. He was a three-time All-MEAC First Team choice and an All-American offensive lineman, and the Hornets won the 1989 MEAC crown and shared it in ’88 and ’91. Some 30 years later, Milstead, in his first college head coaching job, hopes to replicate the success the Hornets enjoyed when he played.
“My goal is to take a step in our football program and be better than we were the year before,” Milstead said, who spent eight seasons in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins. “My intentions are to take a step every year and to actually build a football program that will be fundamentally and technically sound and to facilitate immediate results on the field, in the classroom and definitely in the community.”
Milstead has his work cut out for him. The Hornets have won only 12 games in the past five seasons, and they were winless in 2016. They haven’t had a winning record since they were 6-5 in 2012.
“I wouldn’t call it challenges,” he said. “I’d say it’s small obstacles you have to get over. Everything has its peaks and valleys, its ebbs and flows. Delaware State is where it should be right now. There was a reason and a purpose why God brought me back to Delaware State.”
Morgan State elevated Jones to interim head coach from defensive coordinator, a position he has held for the past two years, to halt the Bears’ recent downward spiral. They are 8-24 since they shared the MEAC title with North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, South Carolina State and Bethune-Cookman in 2014 with Lee Hull at the helm and made the school’s first-ever FCS playoff appearance.
“The biggest challenge is trying to get us all on the same page,” Jones said. “What we’re trying to do is create an identity and change the culture. In years past, we didn’t know exactly who we were, especially academically. Who are you on offense? Who are you on defense? Who are you on special teams? What do you want to be on campus? The key is messaging, and that starts with the coaches. Coaches and players alike have to believe in who we are, have to believe in the identity that we’re trying to create.”
The identity Jones wants for the Bears is one of an aggressive and physical team on both sides of the ball.
Morgan State isn’t Jones’ maiden voyage as a head coach. He had a one-year stint at Alcorn State, his alma mater. The Braves were 2-10, but Jones says the season wasn’t a total disaster because it was a learning experience for him.
“The things that you did wrong,” Jones said. “The mistakes that you made, the things you would like to have done differently, you get a chance to do it all over again. This isn’t my first time putting a staff together. This isn’t my first time calling plays, all of the experiences I had before are helping me to be a better coach. I feel like I’m a better coach and a better man. I was a little younger then. I was really aggressive. I’ve become more seasoned. I understand the trials and tribulations that you go through.”