Bobcat Coaches Make NFL Rounds
8/18/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
It was like old times for Junior Adams.
Surrounded by familiar faces like Dennis Erickson, an attentive Adams watched from the sideline of San Francisco 49ers training camp earlier this month, taking in the instruction from one of football’s most successful coaching staffs. The scene replicated many such sessions that played out in Corvallis, Ore., where Adams played afor Erickson as an Oregon State Beaver from 1999-2000. Adams and members of the MSU coaching staff visited Niners training camp, where Erickson reigns as head coach, this summer.
“I was glad to be able to see those guys,” Adams said Tuesday, as MSU’s training camp was beginning. “It was great to see them not as a player but as a coach, and it was a great experience for me.” San Francisco receivers coach Eric Yarber was Adams’ position coach at Oregon State. “He’s the guy who taught me, so this was a chance for me to see if I’m teaching it the right way and to get caught up on terminology and technique.”
Visits to NFL training camps are not unusual for college coaching staffs. Mike Kramer has been involved with college football as a player or coach for nearly a quarter century, but he never tires of the feeling he gets standing on the sidelines of an NFL training camp. “The cool thing is to see the pace of practice,” said Kramer, who spent time earlier this month at the Seattle Seahawks training camp in Cheney, Wash. The former head coach at Eastern Washington University, which the Seahawks call home during camp, Kramer has been a frequent August visitor there over the years. “Even in the NFL, the pace of practice is really geared toward teaching and learning.”
MSU offensive line coach Jason McEndoo, who played for the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints, and who is the MSU staff’s professional liaison, said preseason NFL visits make sense on several levels. “The big thing is that it solidifies that what you’re coaching and what you’re talking about to the players is being done at the highest level,” the former Washington State star said.
For McEndoo, like Adams, the visit to the Bay Area renewed old acquaintances. McEndoo played for Seattle while Erickson was the Seahawks’ head coach, and his offensive line coach was current Niners’ assistant Greg Smith. “A lot of what I do is adapted from Coach Smith,” he said. “There is not a lot of unique stuff in coaching, it’s mostly taking what you learn or see from other people and communicating it in your own way. I learned a lot from Coach Smith.”
Bobcat defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, who has engineered the Big Sky’s top defense for three consecutive seasons, said reinforcement of teaching methods was just one positive aspect when MSU’s defensive staff visited Saints training camp. “We picked up a couple of defensive pressures and coverages,” he said. “You see a lot of organizational things, how they break down opponents, how they plan practice, how they delegate things, and some different techniques.”
As was the case in New Orleans, where the MSU defensive staff gained full access to Saints training camp because Bobcat linebackers coach Rob Christoff has a former college teammate on the staff, Erickson, a former Bobcat quarterback, gave MSU offensive coaches full access at Niners camp. “Coach Erickson completely opened the doors for us,” McEndoo said. “We were right on the sideline mingling through drills. The on-field access was great. I think we each took things to add to our every-day drills. The treated us great.”
Still, as MSU moves headlong into training camp this week, the visits by Bobcat coaches to three different NFL camps this month only reinforced for the MSU staff some basic coaching tenets, Kramer said. “In the end, the limiting factor of any football team is not how much the coaches can teach, it’s how much the players learn.”
Surrounded by familiar faces like Dennis Erickson, an attentive Adams watched from the sideline of San Francisco 49ers training camp earlier this month, taking in the instruction from one of football’s most successful coaching staffs. The scene replicated many such sessions that played out in Corvallis, Ore., where Adams played afor Erickson as an Oregon State Beaver from 1999-2000. Adams and members of the MSU coaching staff visited Niners training camp, where Erickson reigns as head coach, this summer.
“I was glad to be able to see those guys,” Adams said Tuesday, as MSU’s training camp was beginning. “It was great to see them not as a player but as a coach, and it was a great experience for me.” San Francisco receivers coach Eric Yarber was Adams’ position coach at Oregon State. “He’s the guy who taught me, so this was a chance for me to see if I’m teaching it the right way and to get caught up on terminology and technique.”
Visits to NFL training camps are not unusual for college coaching staffs. Mike Kramer has been involved with college football as a player or coach for nearly a quarter century, but he never tires of the feeling he gets standing on the sidelines of an NFL training camp. “The cool thing is to see the pace of practice,” said Kramer, who spent time earlier this month at the Seattle Seahawks training camp in Cheney, Wash. The former head coach at Eastern Washington University, which the Seahawks call home during camp, Kramer has been a frequent August visitor there over the years. “Even in the NFL, the pace of practice is really geared toward teaching and learning.”
MSU offensive line coach Jason McEndoo, who played for the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints, and who is the MSU staff’s professional liaison, said preseason NFL visits make sense on several levels. “The big thing is that it solidifies that what you’re coaching and what you’re talking about to the players is being done at the highest level,” the former Washington State star said.
For McEndoo, like Adams, the visit to the Bay Area renewed old acquaintances. McEndoo played for Seattle while Erickson was the Seahawks’ head coach, and his offensive line coach was current Niners’ assistant Greg Smith. “A lot of what I do is adapted from Coach Smith,” he said. “There is not a lot of unique stuff in coaching, it’s mostly taking what you learn or see from other people and communicating it in your own way. I learned a lot from Coach Smith.”
Bobcat defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, who has engineered the Big Sky’s top defense for three consecutive seasons, said reinforcement of teaching methods was just one positive aspect when MSU’s defensive staff visited Saints training camp. “We picked up a couple of defensive pressures and coverages,” he said. “You see a lot of organizational things, how they break down opponents, how they plan practice, how they delegate things, and some different techniques.”
As was the case in New Orleans, where the MSU defensive staff gained full access to Saints training camp because Bobcat linebackers coach Rob Christoff has a former college teammate on the staff, Erickson, a former Bobcat quarterback, gave MSU offensive coaches full access at Niners camp. “Coach Erickson completely opened the doors for us,” McEndoo said. “We were right on the sideline mingling through drills. The on-field access was great. I think we each took things to add to our every-day drills. The treated us great.”
Still, as MSU moves headlong into training camp this week, the visits by Bobcat coaches to three different NFL camps this month only reinforced for the MSU staff some basic coaching tenets, Kramer said. “In the end, the limiting factor of any football team is not how much the coaches can teach, it’s how much the players learn.”
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