Ohio State Football: Inside Scoop on Coordinators Everett Withers and Tom Herman

Ohio State has two brand-new coordinators for offense and defense.  From the looks of their resumes, they are two top-notch coaches.  Both have had a lot of success, and Buckeye nation is hoping that their expertise will contribute to a National Championship. 

I recently sat down with someone who knows and has worked with both of them.  Anthony Ceder was a graduate assistant at the University of Texas during the time that both Everett Withers and Tom Herman were on the staff. 

Withers was the defensive backs coach and Tom Herman was also a graduate assistant.  A third-person perspective could prove very enlightening about two of the new coaches for the Buckeyes.

Everett Withers:

Q: I am not going to ask 20 questions, flat out, what kind of coach is Ohio State getting?

AC:  They are getting a tremendous coach.  Withers is an ace recruiter, very bright. He's a great teacher of fundamentals.

Q: What are his strengths?

AC: To sum up Everett’s strengths, he is incredibly bright, very organized and detailed, tough yet inspiring.  Professionally, a secondary coach is one of the hardest jobs on a staff. 

Passing schemes and new offenses are making it very hard on secondary coaches because they must adjust to it all. 

With all the innovative offenses and passing schemes, one better have a coach who has mastered the details of how to be a defensive back, and Everett has. 

Everett goes out of his way to make sure his players are prepared.  He was known to have extra 6 a.m. meetings with his players above and beyond the normal team meetings. 

He is highly professional and a master of the defensive-back position.  He knows technique inside and out and has the ability to teach it to others.

Q: You mentioned he was inspiring; can you give me an example?

AC: I believe it was after the Red River Rivalry of 2000 when we lost to Oklahoma 63-14.  Everyone was down in the dumps, including myself.  Not only had we lost to one of our biggest rivals, our secondary was decimated.

Josh Heupel must have thrown five or more TD passes and we came into the locker room as dejected as we could be. Everett walked in the room to talk to his secondary. Everett told us that football is an unforgiving game and that we have to turn it around.

The only way to make sure football does not destroy us is through toughness and resilience in the midst of challenge.  He asked us who was scarred today and some raised their hands.  He apologized for putting them in a tough position as some were true freshman and told them he should not have played them.

He was able to comfort our fragile confidence and inspire us to overcome our horrid situation.  I believe that year; we went on to win 7-8 straight games.

Q: OK, it sounds like he is a great coach, knows his X’s and O’s as well as a master of the defensive-back position, but what kind of recruiter is he?

AC: Everett is an outstanding recruiter. He works so hard as a coach, and recruiting is no different. Even though we had many recruits in Texas and Mack Brown was a phenomenal recruiter, Everett would not let Texas’ fertile grounds make him complacent. He was not afraid to recruit outside of Texas even though there was a lot of talent in the state. 

Everett has an excellent personality, the word I would use is he is ‘appealing.’  He is highly intelligent but does not come off as a snob and he connects really well with parents.  He works hard and will not let Urban Meyer’s reputation of being a great recruiter deter him from being a great recruiter himself. 

He was under Mack Brown, a similar type of recruiter, but it pushed him to be even better recruiter, and not to rest on Brown’s laurels.

Q: Give me one anecdote to sum up the type of coach Ohio State is getting.

AC:  Our offensive coordinator, Greg Davis, at Texas said this about Everett, when Everett got a job with Jeff Fisher and the Tennessee Titans. Davis said he thought Withers would be a head coach in the NFL within five years.  That is how much respect our coordinator had for Everett Withers as a coach. 

He is demanding, professional, hard working, a master of the defensive-back position (and probably knows more after all those years in the NFL), great recruiter, great with parents.  He is an excellent coach.

Q: Sounds like Ohio State has a top-notch coach.

AC: He is top notch and I can’t think of anyone who knows the defensive backs better. He and Fickell will develop a devastating defense.  If you are looking for someone who is hard working, excellent teacher, master of defense, great recruiter, he is your man.

Tom Herman:

Q: Let us turn our attention to the offensive side of the ball?  What kind of coach is Ohio State getting in Tom Herman?

AC: There are too many positives about Tom.  He is an incredibly positive person, kind of the Norman Vincent Peale of coaches. He is incredibly bright and can think fast.  He can solve a problem in seconds while it would take other coaches minutes to hours to solve the same conditions. 

He thinks incredibly fast.  He can process football quickly; my guess is that Urban Meyer can tell Tom something and Tom will process it fast and be able to teach it almost right away. 

He sees defenses quickly and can adjust just as quickly.  He believes the quarterback is what drives wins or losses today and will scour the country to find the best possible QB for OSU while striving to improve OSU’s current QB’s.

He is highly innovative as well.  Before all the wildcat formations, Tom was lining up non-quarterbacks in the shotgun in order to run them. 

I believe current Texans tight end James Casey, who was at Rice at the time Tom was there, was lined up in the shotgun from the quarterback spot in order to run much like the wildcat.

Tom is innovative in this way; he can see defenses and adjust and create offenses that attack defensive strengths.

Q: OK, he sounds like a highly intelligent coach who knows offense and can teach it but what kind of recruiter is he?

AC: Tom is a great recruiter. He works hard and goes all out in recruiting. He connects well with parents and is very professional.  He knows how to get top talent at places that are not the most attractive. 

While he was at places like Sam Houston State and Rice, he was able to convince NFL caliber players like James Casey and Josh McCown to come to those schools. 

Imagine what kind of recruiting he can do now that he is at Ohio State and can approach a recruit without having to try to sell them on the quality of the football program that may not be a marquee name. 

There is clearly a pattern of success schools have while Tom is there.  Not only is he a highly intelligent innovator on offense, but he also has a good eye for talent and was able to convince these players to come to places like Sam Houston State and Rice.

Tom learned how to recruit from Mack Brown and I believe the sky is the limit for him as a coach and recruiter.

He also really cares that his players graduate so he is not only concerned about them as a football player but is highly involved in them as a person.  Everett is like that, too.

Q: What fun facts can you tell me about Tom Herman?

AC: Tom is a family man as well as a coach.  He pretty much just thinks football and family.  He is a highly detailed person and does everything as perfectly as he can.  Even if he knew Mack Brown was not as concerned about a particular area, Tom would get angry at himself if he did not do the job right.  '

Doing everything the best and to perfection mattered more to him, even though Mack Brown would not have cared if certain things were not done to perfection. 

He cares a lot and is highly driven to excellence.  He will be tougher on himself than Urban Meyer.

As a family man, he married his high school sweetheart and has two very adorable and smart kids.  He and his wife are best friends and have been through a lot together.

Both have made sacrifices for the family and Tom’s wife endured a lot early on to support her husband’s career.

Thanks Anthony for your time! It sounds like Ohio State has gotten two top-notch coaches who know their positions, recruit well, are hard working, driven and have great personalities.  We at Buckeye nation should be encouraged; the future looks bright.