D3football.com Podcast 407 Extra: David Blake, Bethany (W.Va.) [10:05-15:06]

send them all off. All right. And the next day, Jeff Copper, it was the DFO of the time at Memphis. He's not Florida State. And that was your one of Mike Norvel's staff invited me in for an interview and through my suit on, I had made on deployment and you know, did the interview. My first title in football is the assistant director of football operations. And that was what that was. A cool title. I was the guy that got to help wipe down the tables after training tables, you know, carry out a cooler, you know, no job too big, no job too small kind of thing, just make yourself viable. That staff turned out to be loaded. I didn't realize the time that that staff had, you know, Oregon's head coach Dan Laning, Kenny Dillingham was a GA at the time. Will Hall, two lanes coach, Pete Lembo, the head coach at Buffalo, Ron Silverfield, the head coach at Arkansas, Mike Norvel forces our head coach. We just had guys all over the place and it was just really the ultimate think tank of, you know, young football minds that I didn't realize that the gold mine that I hit is such a early phase in my football life and then I just took off from there. That's crazy. But that, I mean, you know, obviously director of football operations doesn't necessarily, it doesn't bring to mind super glamorous work and that of course, assistant DFO, I could see where that would translate to what you were doing. The couple of jobs you've had most recently before coming to Bethany are also, you know, are not, what am I trying to say? They're not, you know, the normal assistant coach type title. So what does a, what does a, what does a special team's analyst at Kent's, they do at Kent do? That's a great question. So my day to day I'd work with a specialist, you know, hoping those guys, you know, out of practice, you know, I've set the film room up for the, for the specs. And that's really what I, what I learned a lot about how to maintain and manage the psyche really of the, of the specialist in, you know, build a lot of really great relationships for the guys on a football team that, on a lot of staffs, really are often overlooked, but it can't stay, you know, coach Karni's staff, those guys were fully taken care of. But you know, you go in each week, I split, split a lot of it with CJ Conrad, who is our special team's coordinator. So he was, you know, and he's doing all the tight end stuff, getting ready with the offense. I was doing all the four breakdowns, all the breakdowns, you know, what people are doing on kickoff, what people are doing on punt, you know, all the four major phases there, what their personnel was, who their guys were. And then, you know, making sure the scout cards are ready with the GAs, all that type stuff. And then just carrying out the plan. And then on game day, you know, charting, you know, making sure that, you know, the iPad was ready soon as they came off the fields, like a show to the long snapper, the kicker, or their kick returners. And it turned out, you know, last year at Kent State, going in the year, you know, CJ Conrad, man, that guy is just filled with energy and juice. And he said, Blake, you guys, we're going to flip the world special teams unit in America. And I said, let's freaking do it, man. And they were in like the one thirties, and we finished the season ranked in the top 20 of the ESPN, you know, rankings for, you know, special teams efficiency. And we had all American kick returner, derelis Clarke, all conference punt returner. And then both of our other guys were, you know, top of the heap in the conference in a punt and kick. And they were both poached in the transfer portal. And so it was a pretty wild ride. And obviously you have, you have on field coaching experience as well, even the defensive coordinator at a D2 school, you were at Westminster in Pennsylvania for those who only pay attention to D3, like I do. And you're not coming to a spot where you are, you're going to have to put some of those details aside, I suppose, certainly wiping down tables, certainly making sure the iPad is ready for guys coming off the field. But you know, at a, at a smaller school, at a smaller program like Bethany, I probably not all of those details go away. How are you like trying to balance being in charge of the big picture and all the things that come along with that with all of these other things that I'm sure you have a specific way you want to see them done. And you know, that's got to, that's got to be something that is got a hard to put aside I would assume. So, so the way we spirited that right off the rip, I wanted to make sure that I brought guys in on staff that knew what that type of detailed discipline and success look like. So my staff's pretty much split right down the middle of guys who play college football then have follow on military experience, but then I have guys that played high level division one football. And so when I first, you know, took our one in the office, you know, I just want to start rearranging things, you know, you know, you basically changed the functioning of the office a little bit. And, you know, one of the, one of the guys kind of made a snarky comment to me that's no longer on staff, but he said, he goes, Coach, why do you care so much? This isn't a high estate. Uh oh. And so that's what I really struck a core with me and what I really wanted to do was flip