"It's going to be a very, very exciting, fun and sleepless spring” - Q&A with Offensive Coordinator Mitch Stewart - Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

"It's going to be a very, very exciting, fun and sleepless spring” - Q&A with Offensive Coordinator Mitch Stewart

3/16/2023 10:00:00 AM | Football

Year 2 for the Stewart offense starts off with a plethora of position battles to watch in spring ball

By: Sam Doughton, MTSU Athletic Communications

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The Middle Tennessee football offensive staff started their post-season review from a place of humility. Not just in being honest in what they saw on film, but in what they heard from their players.

Interviewing each player at every position, the coaches asked their student-athletes: "What can we do better?"

"That's an ego killer, now," Stewart said. "When you go and ask kids 'Hey, what do you want me to do better?' You better be willing to hear the response. Otherwise, don't ask. That was one thing we kind of challenged ourselves with."

The response from his players, to continue to emphasize being clear and concise in their coaching, informed every aspect of the preparation for Spring Practice, which started on Tuesday, March 14 for the Blue Raiders. Just as much, if not more, than the more than hard numbers they broke down schematically after the year.

"After year one, now that all the emotion is out of it, let's go back, let's watch, let's look at facts," Stewart described the process. "These are numbers, these are things that we did well, did not do well. Why did we not do them well? Who did we think was to blame at first? Who was actually to blame?"

Stewart sat down with GoBlueRaiders.com to talk about that offseason review, the position outlook at each spot heading into the spring and what excites him about the 2023 Blue Raiders.

The conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for flow and clarity.

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Now that your offense has a had a year to learn your system, what excites you about getting a spring where you're not having to teach from scratch every practice?

That's probably been the most fun part is that you've got a little consistency. I know that sounds weird (to say) in spring. But it was a whole lot better this year with the staff, watching and talking installs and studying us, as opposed to studying where I'd come from last year. Because each team is different. You get a better feel for your personnel, who you've got, what they do well, things like that. As opposed to just saying, 'Hey listen, this is what worked for us in the past.' And then you spend the first couple of months hoping it's going to work with your personnel as well.

Obviously, that's been a little bit cleaner, it's been a lot more fun, and it's probably more accurate. Any time you're watching yourself do things against the competition that you face, against in-conference people, it's going to give you a better idea of who you are, what you're good at, what you're bad at.

Looking through the two-deep, the offensive line brings back a lot of snaps at both levels, but it's obviously a group that will be looking to improve over some things from last season. What's the point of emphasis for them, particularly going into a camp where they have way more depth than they did last spring?

I think the biggest thing is just confidence. The biggest thing is just getting those guys to play with an edge and to play confidently, because, like you said, all of those guys now have playing time. After the season when you finally have a chance to catch your breath and you look back as an offensive staff, when we come in here and we studied, it was one of those weird things where, and I want to be careful how I say this, because mediocrity is not in any of our DNAs.

But, when you look at it, there is a sense of 'Oh My Gosh, you look at this offensive line and you didn't have Jordan Palmer the whole spring, you didn't have Jacqui Graham until summer, Falvey was a rotational guy at best before last year and all of a sudden he goes into a starting role and the rest of those cats had never played for us.' I think that was very important for us as a staff because that was the ammunition that we needed to use going into this year's offensive line is 'Hey listen, I understand from a perception standpoint what it looked like. I know that we gave up pressure. And there's always two tales to that side, it wasn't always them. But at the same time, look at what you did, from a positive outlook, with who you were. And now look at that room. All of you guys have a chance to do it all over again.'

You lose JP (Jordan Palmer), but you have Wilson Kelly, who did great. He'll tell you; he'll walk around and every time you see him now, he'll tell you '4-0.' He makes very certain you understand that he's 4-0 as a starter. But Qui (Jacqui Graham) is going to have an offseason for the first time since he's been here. I think that's the biggest thing, not blowing smoke, but having a realistic talk of how you have a chance to be a very confident bunch and you need to work on increasing that confidence. And they've done a heck of a job in the weight room. And I truly think that in that position, that's where that confidence starts. Any time you're bigger and you're stronger as a big guy, that makes you feel good.

Looking outside to the wide receivers, it's a lot of names we've called at different times last year, but maybe weren't calling as often. What do you like about this group entering the spring?

I think their competitive edge. I like their response, because like you said, we lost 82 percent of the production out of that room, with (Jaylin) Lane and (Izaiah) Gathings and (Yusuf) Ali. There's two ways you look at that when that happens. You can either look at it as 'woe is me,' which isn't going to do anybody any good. Or you look at it as 'Man, what a great opportunity for the Elijah Metcalfs, for the Bryce Baileys for the Javonte Shermans, for the Jeremy Tates.' All these guys, like you said, where you've spotted them, they're out there, they make a catch. Elijah Metcalf, there for a while every time he got in, he caught a touchdown.

It's a great opportunity for those guys and I think that's the biggest thing I've seen from that group. They're trying to form an edge, because they know. You can sense that urgency in what they're doing, when they go through mat drills and how they're encouraging one another, getting after one another. They understand that 'This is our time. We've got to have you; we've got to have me. We have to fill those voids.' I'm really encouraged and impressed by their response and their willingness to be up for the challenge.

Obviously, we'll see. Because it's not like we've been throwing and catching balls, we've been in the weight room working out. But from a work ethic standpoint, those guys have really taken their opportunity and are running with it so far.

Running Back Room looks to be pretty banged up, with Sparrow out until the fall, but with some new faces to help supplement that recovery time. Who should we look out for in the backfield?

We do have a lot of new guys. That was probably the spot we were able to do the most with at mid-year, with Flip (Jaiden Credle) and with Romal Webb. All early enrollees. So, between those two, Frank Peasant, Terry Wilkins. Terry is just that guy that every time you put him in the game, good things just seem to happen. So, we'll have a good little battle all spring.

Frank was phenomenal for us. He's a tough player, that guy can get after it. He's low key athletic. This morning he's shooting three pointers then you take him out to the soccer field, he'd be able to play that game as well. Take him to the golf course, he'll figure it out. But I am interested and excited to see Romal and Flip. I think they're going to bring a level of explosiveness. That's why we brought them in.

The biggest storyline for any team is when the quarterback room has some turnover. In a post-Chase Cunningham world, you have a four-way battle to start things out that obviously will not likely be settled in the spring. What are you hoping to see out of those guys?

The fun part is it's kind of 'Here we go again.' It's the exact same situation (as last year) because there's a lot of unknown. When you look back offensively last year, the things we were able to do and the improvements we made and what we got better at, and think 'Shoot, that was with a quarterback that I personally worked with for a month before the season.'

This year is a lot different because I did get an awful lot of work last year with Nicholas Vattiato and Kyle Lowe in the spring, even though Lowe was just a baby. I feel more connected with Nick than Chase, probably because I was playing a bunch of catch up with Chase. And now I've got this huge body of work with Nick and now we here go again, I'll have another huge body of work with him.

And then you add Ren Hefley into the mix too as just an ultra-productive kid in his time at Presbyterian and his time at Northwest Community College. He's just ultra-productive, a football junkie. And then you put in the dynamics of DJ Riles. I watched him squat 495 pounds the other day. You have an interesting room, and you have some tools.

But, you know as well as I do, you've been covering it long enough, it's fun to have all those tools, but you also have do a good job, and Brent (Stockstill) does a phenomenal job of this, but what we're going to have make sure we do is, we've got to figure out what is the best tool to use. That's where it gets tough when you've got four dudes, it can be a four-way race, but only for so long. And then at some point, we will have to make a decision so that the reps start getting re-distributed.

We have our work cut out for us from that standpoint, so whoever the guy is, he's got to get the majority of the reps because we have to get them ready for the season. Because none of those guys have a tremendous amount of playing time.

You've already touched on a few of these guys, but who are some of the early enrollees you're excited about seeing on the field for the first time as Blue Raiders?

We'll go in order of who you asked about. Up front, Julius Pierce, a kid we got from FIU. Big, strong kid, good-looking kid, great kid. He's had a really good offseason. It'll be interesting to see how he does getting thrown into the mix, because we'll throw him into everything pretty early to see how he performs.

Obviously, Flip and Romal, the two running backs. I am very interested to see how they do because those are guys that are not role guys. Those are guys that need to come in and make an impact. You always have to have two backs, one back can't do it (all), especially in an offense that's going to try to be up tempo. But it sure would be nice to have a third too.

Holden Willis, a kid from USF, Tennessee kid. Big wideout, but he's kind of been one the quarterbacks have raised an eyebrow and come back and said, 'Holy cow, this dude's explosive, he catches everything.' He was a dude that jumped a crazy vertical. He's going to be fun to watch.

And then obviously, Ren (Hefley). We'll have to get him a lot of reps and see how he does there at the beginning, kind of pit him and Nick against one another and see how that goes. And then figure out with these other two and pit those guys in there (as well). Especially, to me, with DJ, because DJ can't just sit over there with me. He's too athletic. If he is not under center, then he needs to be on the field somewhere.

The biggest thing is all of these other guys. Because technically speaking, if you want to look at it that way, we have a lot of mid-year enrollees. We've got Jeremy Tate Jr., Metcalf, Bailey, Sherman, who are all going to get a lot more on their plate so it will be fun to see how they respond. It's going to be a very, very exciting and fun and sleepless spring.

Every offseason, the offensive staff will go through a wholesale review of the prior season ahead of spring ball. Were there any areas of emphasis the staff wanted to promote in camp this season after that review was complete?

There's a couple of things. The biggest one was consistency. We were great one day then not so great the next day. Consistency was our biggest downfall, that's what we have to improve.

You go back and watch every clip from all 13 games, and you look at schematically — these are the things we did well, didn't do well, we got to get better at, all of that. But what we did a good job of as a staff is we interviewed players at each position. We told guys that their opinion matters because we know they'll tell us the truth. Some of which are gone, may have been a Chase Cunningham, a Yusuf Ali.

(We asked) what do we need to emphasize? What did we emphasize that you didn't like? What did we do that y'all did like? What did we do that we did not like? And so on and so forth. Now, there were a lot of things schematically that I'm not going to waste your time on now.

But the biggest thing that came up was 'Continue to be clear and concise. Tell us what to do. Tell us how to do it. Tell us why we're doing it.' So, you kind of have this very task-oriented mindset. You may say, 'Well, that seems like it may get a little stale.' Well, no, it doesn't because it all goes back to who you're doing it with and that's your motivation. The team part of it, the guys that you're in there with. So that's kind of our focus: 'Hey, coaches, be as clear and concise as you can.'

What do they know to be as successful as possible? Put that in that diagram box in the meeting, the rest of it we'll coach up on the field. Create buzz words, so that when you say 'watermelon' and as soon as you say 'watermelon,' it clicks in that kid's head.

We did that last year, but at the same time, when you're installing and you're new, you feel like you have to over teach. Some of that stuff just has to play out at first. Nobody watches a movie in reverse, so why learn a play that way? Introduce it, figure out what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we're doing it, who you're doing it with, and then we'll figure out all the ifs, ands, and buts, that come along with it once you get in those situations.