“I want uphold the tradition of having great guys up front” - Q&A with Defensive Line Coach Vernon Hargreaves - Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Vernon Hargreaves is happy to talk to you about the schools he's coached at in the more than 35 years he's been a football coach. He'll happily chat about coaching at his alma mater UConn, or in Conference USA at East Carolina, or his most recent stop at Howard.

He knows most people will be the most curious about his time with the U, the Miami Hurricanes, when the program underwent a renaissance under Butch Davis and Larry Coker, culminating in the 2001 national title.

But while the list of accomplishments and teams Hargreaves has coached is long, including 15 bowl appearances, with six in bowls currently part of the College Football Playoff, what really makes Hargreaves light up is sharing the stories of his players.

There are recent students, like the San Francisco 49ers' Dre Greenlaw, who Hargreaves coached at Arkansas. Or Nick Bolden, who became an All-American at Missouri under Hargreaves' tutelage. And of course, plenty of Hurricanes on that list became great players, from Dan Morgan to Chris Campbell.

The one thing every player Hargreaves remembers now has in common, however, is what gave them their success: their willingness to put in the work.

"There's 1,000 stories of guys and their work ethic," Hargreaves said. "People see the final result and they don't understand where that guy came from."

Hargreaves first got to know Derek Mason, his new boss at MTSU, when Mason was the defensive coordinator at Stanford recruiting his son, future Tampa Bay Buccaneer Vernon Hargreaves III. Mason impressed Hargreaves and his wife of now 32 years, Jackie, who Hargreaves makes sure to mention has been as big a part of his career as he's been, but the distance away from the family's home in Florida was too much at the time.

"If Stanford would've been in Florida, he would've played for him," Hargreaves said of Mason.

Now, the long-time defensive assistant gets a chance to coach alongside Mason and pass on decades of football wisdom to the next generation of Blue Raiders in the defensive trenches.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what happens once we have a chance to put the pads on and really kind of get out there and get after it," Hargreaves said. "I want to uphold the tradition of having great guys up front, because I think that's a big deal."

Hargreaves recently sat down with GoBlueRaiders.com Staff Writer Sam Doughton to chat about his career, coaching both linebackers and defensive linemen, lessons learned from his time at "The U" and what he's learned about his defensive line room so far this spring.

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

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You're one of the few coaches that Coach Mason has brought in where I haven't been able to figure out where you crossed paths with someone else on staff. How did you get involved with being a part of Mason's first group of coaches at MTSU?

It all started with Brian Stewart. We've known each other for a long time and the reality is, Coach Mason, maybe almost 10 years ago, recruited my son. I've known about him and known of him for years. I admired what he was doing as a defensive coordinator at Stanford.

As far as Coach Stewart is concerned, we had gotten to know each other a little bit and then the closest we were together was probably when I was at Howard, and he was at Maryland. We kind of linked up there a little bit. When the opportunity (at MTSU) came up and I saw who it was, it was kind of a no-brainer to be around these guys with the caliber of coaches that they are and the men that they are, knowing what Coach Mason has done in the past when he was at Vandy. I wanted to be around starting to build something from the ground up, just in terms of his program, not necessarily the overall Middle Tennessee program.

Just doing it with (Coach Mason) from the bottom up, it looked like a heck of an opportunity at a place that is passionate about their football. When you have that, you have a chance to have success. The last time I was in this league, we did have success. Years ago, I was at East Carolina, when they were in Conference USA, that was a long time ago. We were back-to-back champs (when Skip Holtz was there).

The opportunity to come and work with both of those guys, knowing what I know, the little bit of research I did on Middle Tennessee, some of the things they've been able to do in the past, I appreciate Coach Stockstill's work for 18 years. That's a heck of a run, right there. I used to run into him down in Florida quite a bit.

You've been a position coach at every stop in your career, with some time as a special teams coordinator as well. What about being a position coach has appealed to you during your career?

It was never necessarily the be all and end all for me. I've been a special teams coordinator for many years. Haven't done it on the defensive side. But as a linebackers coach, you've got to know everything anyway. You've got to understand the coverage, you've got to know what's going on up front. I wasn't necessarily dying to be a coordinator. The places that I've been and the circumstances that I was in didn't necessarily allow for it at the time. And trust me, I'm very comfortable being in the situations that I've been in.

One stop in your career I think most people would be interested in was your time as the linebackers coach at Miami (FL) during that turn of the millennium run y'all had to the national title. What was being a part of that like? What did you learn during your time with the Hurricanes?

I guess I hit right at the right time. Going into it, it was a down time, they were just coming out of a 5-6 season. It probably could've gone either way. I told my wife, 'Listen, this could go either way, but I've got to go. It's Miami. All I know is the Miami that I've known.' To be able to be there, be a part of the resurgence at that time and bring it back to what everybody knew it was, when you're in the middle of it, you don't see it. Once you get away and look back, it's like 'You know what, that was a pretty big deal.'

I think one of the biggest takeaways I got from it was the overall work ethic of the guys that we had. People think we recruited all these five-star guys and that's why we were pretty good. That wasn't it at all. It was the work ethic behind those guys, because half those guys that we took and half those guys that ended up being first-round draft choices, they weren't five-star guys. They were two-star guys, one-star guys, because their work ethic was five-stars.

Just having the privilege of being around some of those guys. We just had two of them go in the hall of fame. Andre Johnson and Devin Hester. To be able to be around and watch and see how guys like that work and the things that they did, that's the biggest kind of takeaway that I got from it and that I've been able to pass on to the places that I've gone and let them know, 'Hey, this is what it looks like. These are the things that you need to do in order to have success.'

You've spent much of your career coaching linebackers and spent nearly the same amount of time coaching the defensive line, which will be your responsibility here in Coach Stewart's defense. How can your background in both position groups apply to what y'all are trying to do in the trenches?

Having had that experience of coaching those guys and the things I've been able to do over the past few years with the D-Line, it gives me the perspective of the things we need to be doing up front to make sure that the guys in the second level are having success. I can speak to 'Hey, this is why we need to do this, because this is what those guys are doing.' To have the ability to know where everybody should be and what happens if something does go wrong, what's the issue and being able to come up with the answer in a hurry.

Having been in both spots and knowing what everybody is supposed to do, it makes it a little bit easier and a little bit more efficient to make those corrections.

The Defensive Line has had a lot of production in recent years for the Blue Raider defense, but obviously needs to replace a lot of that production this season. What do you like about the group now that you've gotten to know them a little bit?

Obviously, all the guys that played last year are gone, so these guys all had smaller roles to a certain extent. Now it's time for them to step up and increase their role. For us, trying to figure out what the pieces are and where they fit and what's going to be best for them and us and all those types of things. We've got some talented guys, guys that can move around and run.

So now for us, it's just a matter of seeing where they fit. Coming from the four-down stuff that they've been in, there's going to be elements of that, but then there's going to be some other elements as well. How does all that fit? They're willing. They're enthusiastic. They want to have success. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens once we put the pads on and get out there and get after it. I want to uphold the tradition of having great guys up front. Because I think that's a big deal.

I told the guys; we're going to go how we go. If we do the things that we need to do, then we're going to have a chance to have success. If you watch any of the championship games this year, look at the Michigan/Washington game. See what happens up front. That's the way we're approaching it. We need to be dominant up front; we've got to find some guys and some guys are going to have to grow up in a hurry. We don't have time to wait, we've got to go.

Middle Tennesee State University Athletics

“I want uphold the tradition of having great guys up front” - Q&A with Defensive Line Coach Vernon Hargreaves

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