Inside College Football: Tommy Moffitt's Journey with Nick Saban, Les Miles, and Ed Orgeron

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Athlete One podcast. Veteran high school baseball coach Ken Carpenter takes you into life's classroom as experienced through sports. Go behind the scenes with athletes and coaches as they share great stories, life lessons and ways to impact others.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Each college football player has made the greatest impact during the transfer portal era. No, it's not USC's Caleb Williams, it was Joe Burrell, from Ohio State to LSU. Today I take you behind the scenes of the Powerhouse SEC football program, louisiana State University, with strength coach who built three national championships under three different head coaches, tommy Moffitt Hi, my name is Ken Carpenter and I've played, coached and officiated in 1500 plus games at the high school and college level. Thanks for joining me as we learn from some of the best coaches and athletes around the country. Today's episode is part one of a two part series with one of the godfathers of college football strength and conditioning, tommy Moffitt. Next on the athlete one podcast. This episode of the athlete one podcast is powered by the netting professionals improving programs one facility at a time. Coaches, are you looking around and thinking maybe it's time to upgrade the facility a little bit? Well, I have the answer for it, thanks to the netting professionals. They specialize in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes back stops, batting cages, bp turtles, bp screens, ball carts and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and cubbies. They're not limited to just baseball and softball. They also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and golf courses. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Visit them online at wwwnettingproscom or check out nettingpros on Twitter, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Hello and welcome to the Athlete One Podcast. Joining me today is a man Medi-Consider to be one of the godfathers of the strength and conditioning at the collegiate level Coach, tommy Moffat. Coach. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 2:51

Thank you very much, ken. Thank you for having me Hale.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Well, I'm going to start off with a question. I've had 84 episodes and I have never asked this question, but I want to start off with this one. How good of a hunter are you and what type of hunting do you do?

Speaker 3: 3:10

Wow, great question. You know, I've been on a bunch of podcasts and no one's ever asked that, so I am out. Well, I'm not a great hunter, but I'm an avid hunter. I love hunting, I love fishing and, outside of just a couple of things, it's probably the thing that I enjoy most. I love the solitude of hunting, so I do a little bit of everything. Right now, it's bow season and so I'm hunting with a bow. I hunt white-tailed deer and pigs.

Speaker 2: 3:48

You've had a dream career with strength and conditioning at the college football level. Yes, that's right thought.

Speaker 3: 3:55

Yeah, so I coached high school football and strength and conditioning and wrestling, and all that At a school in New Orleans called John Curtis Christian School and the head coach, jt Curtis his family owns the school. He's won now he's won like 620-something football games. I think he's the first or second winning this coach in all the football. All time he's won 27, I think 27 state championships in football. The schools won over 70 state championships in all sports. They're probably a double A size school but they compete in 4A, you know, because it's just a little small Christian school. So I started there and then I went to the University of Tennessee and coached for Philip Fullmer during the Peyton Manning years and I left there and went to the University of Miami and coached for Butch Davis and you know, we all know the success that they had at the University of Miami. And then coach Sabin hired me here from the University of Miami, my wife. So I met my wife in New Orleans. So the entire time we were in Tennessee I loved it, that's where I was from, but she wanted to go back to New Orleans. And then when we got to Miami, you know we we both got homesick. You know, because in Miami. Neither one of us could get home without driving 12 miles and you had to go north. You know you can't go east. You can go west to Naples, but that's about it. And you can go south to Key West, but there's only way out of Miami's north. And so we came here to Baton Rouge and you know it was a blessing, because her family's, you know, just 45 minutes down the road and you know I've been here now almost 30 years in the south, you know, deep south.

Speaker 2: 6:01

So yeah, if I could ask you? You know you've been a part of three national championships at LSU. You were the strength coach and you compare. I'm sure there's a lot of similarities, but there's also some differences between Nick Saban. Yeah miles at net hose yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:21

Yeah, that's the number one question I get asked. Yeah, especially in the ballroom, everybody wants another. So yes, so first of all, nick was a meticulous planner. Meticulous planner there were. There were never any surprises when, when I worked for coach Saban, you knew what you were going to do a year in advance and he would come. It was amazing. So and and I'm sure he still does it he had the yellow legal pads and so he would come to every meeting and it would have the date and I sat right beside him. So he sat at the end of the table and I sat right beside him for four years and I could see what you know. It was before we had this big boardroom, you know, and I would sit there and I would block my eyes and For some reason he spelt my name to MMIE and so I would sit and strain my eyes over there to look for my name on his legal pad. But we would sit down every day and he would just go through and you, if you didn't bring a notepad in there or a notebook, in fact I might have right here, I Kept the tape you had, you All I had. But you had to keep meticulous notes, because if he told you to do something, you better do it, because he wasn't going to forget about it, because it was written down on a piece of paper and he would sit there and just go through pages and pages of notes and then he would let us all go and we, you know, we'd go do our jobs. He, you know, he was a tough man, but he treated me as good as anybody that I've ever worked for in my life, and I guess it was because of his organization. As long as you did what he told you to do, there wasn't a problem if you did something that he told you not to do. If you did something differently, he would always say, after he got on your butt, he would say you know, we talked about it in the staff meeting. If you didn't agree what with what I had to say, or you thought that it should have been done differently, then why didn't we talk about it, you know? And so he always gave you an opportunity to speak up and say your piece and then move on. So I liked working for him. He was tough, but you always knew where you stood and there were never, ever, ever, ever any surprises. Okay, so now, coach Miles, he didn't sweat the little things you know his. He would start every staff meeting with a joke or a story or you know there'd be you know five or ten minutes of you know Joking and stuff like that and then we'd get to work. But he left a lot of the stuff up to interpretation and and sometimes that would cause you know some, some issues on the staff and it would be like, no, he said it this way, no, he said it this way, and you'd have to go back for clarification. Now me, you know I was a dot-to-i across the tee type of guy and but a great man to work for my, his sons and my sons played on the same baseball team from Shoot from all the way, I guess probably 11 year olds, all the way through you triple SA and travel ball. And now his oldest son went to university high and my son, my oldest son, went to Catholic high and he was starting quarterback, was a real, really good pitcher, real crafty pitcher. And then his middle son, ben, who's now coaching at Texas A&M. Ben went to Catholic high with my middle son and they were teammates and baseball and football also. But super nice man, super nice man, sell them if ever raised his voice, but just one quite as organized is what coach Saban was. And then that, oh, he was a wild man. Wild man, passionate, enthusiastic, like, and you had to match his intensity. You know, and I think you know to some degree, I think you know people Because of his enthusiasm and his accent, I think people took for, took his intelligence and his and some other things for granted and thinking that he was just a great recruiter. But he was a very smart man and the hardest worker, like, in fact, coach all right. So let me go back to Coach Saban. You know, you would think you know he is this super hard working. In fact he coached Ohio State. A super hard worker and I mean and I'm gonna put hard worker in quotation marks because he is a very hard worker, but he wasn't one, because he was so organized he would rather go home at eight, 30 or nine o'clock at night and get a good night's rest. And then I ain't gonna tell him what time he got up, because somehow he sat quietly and wrote eight pages and notes for every staff meeting, whereas Les would keep you there till two o'clock in the morning and he'd be right back in there at six am with a cup of coffee in his hand, and that's the way Coach Joe was. Coach Joe would get there at five o'clock in the morning. You'd have a staff meeting at six. Everybody would go to work and then for lunch he made everybody take a break and go work out and he'd go running like five miles and then come back fired up, sweating all over, soaking wet, and he'd stay till 11, 30, 12, one o'clock at night and be right back up in the next day doing the same thing. And I tell you what I don't see, ken. I don't see how college football coaches or NFL football coaches some of them do what they do Like. I knew guys that would leave at 11 or 12 o'clock at night and be back at four am. And now Steve Inzminger, who was our offense coordinator in 2017, 18, 19, during training camp. He would bring an air mattress and a box fan and he would sleep in his office. He'd go in there and he'd have an air mattress with a blanket and a pillow in his office floor. He wouldn't even leave the office because he spent so much time there. And I'm telling you, man, I got so much respect for those guys and I can't even imagine what it's like now with the portal and in a hell.

Speaker 2: 14:24

It was my mind thinking about the time commitment that you have to make as a college coach.

Speaker 3: 14:32

Yeah, yeah. And they say Jay Johnson, our baseball coach, is the same way. They say he is just a beast when it comes to his ability to stay focused and grind through hours and hours. And Jay Johnson goes on the road and recruits Skip. I don't think Coach Bertman recruited on the road, coach Mineri seldom went on the road. And they say Jay Johnson is the hardest recruiter on the staff and those guys and coaches at every level understand that. But I don't think the fan base and, to some degree, administrators understand the level of commitment that it takes and how hard coaches work in order to be successful. And being here as long as I was, I developed a great, close-knit group of friends, whether they're the guys that go hunting with or the guys that I go fishing with, or the guys that my kids played on baseball teams with. We'd lose and they're like what are y'all doing? How did y'all lose the Ole Miss? Or how'd you lose the Arkansas? And I would say, hey, buddy, I promise you there wasn't a single guy out there that thought we were gonna lose today. Or they didn't go in on Sunday the day after the game and said, pshh, you know, I think we'll take this week off. There's no. I've never worked with anybody that was like that, and I think that's one of the things that people that are outside of the profession take for granted more than anything, and it's the amount of effort that the coaches and the players put into being successful at any level. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Well, I like to do a thing called rapid fire and your answers might be a little bit longer. Yeah, because of the questions I've got lined up, but it I'll make them short. I'll make them short, sure, fine, I love it, but sometimes they're fun questions, sometimes they're informative. So I just like to hear what you have to say, and the first one is you've been in a ton of locker rooms at halftime.

Speaker 3: 17:06

Yes.

Speaker 2: 17:07

And you hear announcers. You hear the fans talk about it Halftime adjustments. What really happens in the locker room at halftime?

Speaker 3: 17:17

Okay. So the first thing that happens, especially in football, everyone runs to the bathroom, everybody, and so you know that takes like five minutes, unless someone's hurt, and they run straight to the training room. So it's total chaos. So after everyone's gone to the bathroom, you have your sports nutrition staff. They're throwing bars and throwing water bottles and, you know, hydration products around. The trainers are running around taping guys up. There's guys, you know, especially when you're on the road it's even more chaotic because there might be somebody over and three guys over in the corner getting IVs. And if a guy's, you know, I've seen guys getting two IVs, one in each arm and they're pumping it, you know, trying to force the fluids in there. The coaches here's the funny thing when you're on the road, one staff is in the coaches and in fact, the coaches locker room at most places is about the size of this area right here it's about a six by six by four, and so you have the offensive staff in here and you have a GA or an intern going over something and he's yelling something out and the offensive coordinator scribbling something up there real quick. The head coach is leaning over somebody's back and then the defensive staff is in the shower where everybody's going into the bathroom, you know, and it's chaos. And then then those guys they break from that and then you know the locker rooms divided in the half offensive staff on one side, defensive staff on the other side they're yelling. So the offensive coordinator is talking. While he's talking, the old line coach is talking to the old line. The wide receiver coach is talking to the wide receivers, you know, because they're they're adding layers to everything that the coordinator is saying, you know. And then the running back, if it's, you're talking about past protection. The office, those C, is talking about past and then the old line is talking about how they're going to protect and the running back coach is talking about how they're going to protect and where they're going to release, you know, as a fourth or fifth option. And then the guys that are in the post box have to leave early. So you got all this screaming going on and then an equipment manager says press box. You know they scream it and so all those guys quit and they take off running and because they got to run and get up the stadium to the wherever the press box is, you know, through the fans, and and then whoever's left in the locker room finishes up that talk and then the head coach calls them up and because you got to leave early to get out on the field, so you know it's 15 minutes, half time is 15 minutes and really there's only about five minutes of real coaching that's going on and then you leave and depending on where you are like, if you're at Florida, our locker room is at the back. So when we played Florida, our locker room is at the back of the stadium, about at the I'd say it's probably at the 40 yard line and it's asphalt. So you got to come out of the locker room and to back of the stadium and you walk along to back of the stadium. You can't run because it's asphalt. You got cleats on and then you walk through the chute and you know there's the band is down there and there's cheerleaders and all this stuff and then you get to. Finally you get to the field. So you got to leave early and that was one of my responsibilities was I'd get there in time, all that stuff up, you know, because Coach Joe would say and when Coach Joe goes, what time are we going to leave? He didn't want, he didn't want. I don't know, coach, what time you think you know. He wanted to know the exact time you know and you have a countdown clock. You know that's in the locker room. So it's the same kind of down clock that's in the stadium and I'd have a stopwatch because sometimes the countdown clock would stop working for some reason. Somebody unplugging or kick a cord or run over a cord outside, so you know, coach, joe would say what time are we going out? I'd say three 15, coach, and at three 15 on that clock we're out the door and you'd run on the football field and warm up and then those coaches would grab their position players and coach them up even more on the sideline right before kickoff. So it's maddening there you go.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Well, which of the teams that you had three different teams, one national champion, three different coaches Was there one team that was just far better than the other two?

Speaker 3: 22:16

2019, no question 2019.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Really.

Speaker 3: 22:20

Yeah, no, no. Yeah, Job, Joe Burrow, Um, yeah, no question, Um, 2003. Well, so, 2003 and 2007,. You know those teams. You know we lost games. The only way we got into the championship game was because, you know, one of the top one or two teams got knocked out, you know, in the playoffs. So we got in there because somebody else did our dirty work. But in 2019, I mean, that's, you know, arguably one of the top, you know depends on who you talk to but probably one of the greatest college football teams of all time. Now, I thought you know we had teams that didn't make it 2005, 2006 and 2011. We didn't make it. Those were those three teams were really good teams, but we didn't make it to the championship game. But the 2019 team was just there's. I'll never, of course, but I'll never coach. I never coached a team like that. We were at the college football hall of fame and we beat when we played Oklahoma in the college football hall of fame. We got there. It was a team event. Both teams were supposed to have dinner together, so we went early and walked through the hall of fame and sat down, and then Oklahoma came in and was going to eat and then go walk around the hall of fame. We beat Oklahoma. Then, when they walked into our room, our team started like laughing and making faces at them and started making fun of them and stuff. I mean that team, not only were they great, but they knew they were great and they feared no one. My son was on that team. So, and you know, week seven, week eight, it gets to be a grind, you know. And we went to Ole Miss. We had a tough, tough game, man, and barely got out of there. There was two games, Auburn and Ole Miss. We barely got out of there alive. And so my son happened to come home one night the next week to eat with us. And so I was, because normally, you know, I didn't like doing this. But I said to my son, I said, hey, how's the team doing? He looked at me like what are you, you know what? And I said, how's the team doing? He goes, dad, we're fine. I said, everybody's good. But he goes, dad, we don't care how much we lift, we don't care how much we practice, we don't care who we play, where we play, when we play. All we want to do is play. And I was like, okay, I'm sorry, I know that's all they cared about. Unbelievable.

Speaker 2: 25:09

Talk about Joe Burrow and the effect he had leaving after he got done graduating from Ohio State.

Speaker 3: 25:16

Yeah, Thanks for the call, joe. The most you know I've never and I've been around Peyton Manning, ken Dorsey you know there's a quarterback whispered in the NFL, todd Helton was a quarterback at Tennessee when I was there. So I've been around some dudes that played that position and I'm the most. And you know, just like Peyton, his dad was a. You know, peyton, his dad was a player, a great quarterback, and Joe's dad was a college defensive coordinator. But Joe understood the game, he understood his ability to motivate players. He knew that it wasn't so much what he said but more about what he did and how he did it. You know I told you the story before I came off my vacation because, joe, I didn't know we were even recruiting Joe. But when I was on vacation during the month of May is when I took my vacation and Coach Joe called, said hey, we just signed a quarterback, he's going to be in town and he wants to meet with you. And you know I didn't say oh, I'm on vacation, coach. You know I left vacation to come and meet with Joe and Joe said that the because the team started the following week. And Joe said I know the team's coming next week. I know we have a conditioning test and we had an incumbent quarterback on the roster that had been through spring ball as the starter and Joe said if I'm going to do, if I, if I'm going to be the leader of this team, I've got to start. My initial impression is extremely important. So Joe and I worked out every day for two hours and when we took our conditioning tests, he actually won every sprint for the mid-skill group and that's, you know, the quarterbacks, the tight ends, kickers, snappers, all those guys. Joe won every rep and then our quarterback and you know what? He beat out a really good quarterback, because the quarterback left right at the end of training camp and transferred to Tulane, became the starter at Tulane and now he is coaching at Tulane. So he, you know, great, great, great guy, great guy. And Joe beat out a tremendous quarterback. But Joe, he wouldn't back down from anybody. We had that next spring, leading into the 2019 season. He fought one day in spring practice. He fought every defensive player on our roster, just about. You know, I mean just a. You know this term gets thrown around a lot, especially in football, but they call people a dog. Joe was a dog Like he would fight you. Yeah, and the players respected him because they knew that he was going to do everything that he could possibly do. He watched, just like Peyton Manning, countless hours of him. Just, I mean, I could, there's so many. Well, I'll give you a story. So, going into the season, the Scouts would come during training camp to watch your team. And so there was a. There was 10 or 15 Scouts and I was talking to them and we got to Joe and the guy goes. So you know, a scout leads this thing. He asked questions and then you know he runs the room, he's the oldest scout. He said what about Joe Burrow? And I said, first words out of my mouth, I said better than Peyton Manning. And there were a couple of young Scouts in the back of Snickers and and another scout says coach, what makes you say that? And I said well, there's two people on this planet that coach Peyton Manning. I mean, there's one person on this planet that coach Peyton Manning, joe Burrow, and it's me. And I'm telling you right now he's better than Peyton Manning. And sure enough, you know, the rest is history.

Speaker 2: 29:19

Wow, that's amazing. That's you know. That's something that you know the average fan out there probably has no idea about. No, no, let me. I want to throw this one out too, because I hear this up here in Ohio what's the SEC? What is their opinion of the Big Ten and, in particular, ohio State?

Speaker 3: 29:41

I'm afraid to say Well, so you know, and a lot of it. You know it's just, and the SEC has a commercial. I think it just means more here. I just, you know, I think it just means and not just football but athletics in general, and a lot of it has to do with our client climate. I mean, you know, it's probably 90 degrees out here right now, you know, and kids practice and run year-round and it and it just means more. I think Now everyone here has a tremendous amount of respect for Ohio State. You have to. But you know People here think that we have more speed in the South than what is in the North. We play a different brand of football. You know we have more athletes on the field or you know now it's harder to recruit big offensive linemen here in tight ends, and I'm just a coach's perspective. But the people here feel like it just means more in the South than what it does in the North.

Speaker 2: 31:03

Okay, Well, to Fetishop, who are the four teams that make it into the college football playoff this season and who wins it all?

Speaker 3: 31:16

Wow, I'm going to say Georgia, you know. I'm going to say I believe that Alabama is a long shot. I'm friends with all those guys. I'm going to say Michigan and then after that I think it's a toss up. I think Florida State's really good. There's no way that three SEC schools get in it. The West, I think, is down a little bit this year, but there's. I thought Kentucky was better than what they were. I don't see three teams from the SEC getting in it. Anyway, I thought Duke was going to be a sleeper team for me but they got beat pretty handedly by Notre Dame. No, it wasn't Notre Dame, they got beat. Yeah, it was Notre Dame. But I'm going to say Alabama, Michigan and I know that's tough for me for you to hear, being Ohio State guy and Alabama. So Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and then the other team. I'm undecided, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 32:39

I think there's a Well, the state's probably got a shot.

Speaker 3: 32:42

Yeah, I was going to say Florida State. That's probably the team that I would pick would be Florida State. And you know Florida State gah, holy man. And I know the string coach there, josh Storm. I know him and then I've got well. So my middle son and my youngest son's high school coach. He left Catholic High to go to Louisville and now he's at Florida State and he's a senior analyst and works with the offensive line there at Florida State. I was texting with him last night and I think Florida State, because based on their personnel and their size and speed, I think they're going to be hard to beat. I really do. But then you know there's. You know Kansas is making some noise and I know it's crumbling, you know so there's always going to be that. Now, the way it's set up, you know who would have thought TCU would have got in there last year, you know. So you just never know who that fourth team is going to be. But I like, and I like Alabama because they're getting better every week and when it comes to stuff like that, that's. You know Coach Saban might not have the best quarterback or the best offensive line, the best secondary or whatever it might be. You can pick them apart, but he's been there so many times and he's such a great planner that I just believe that they're going to be in the hunt in the end Now. They can't afford to lose another game. I don't know if they can beat Georgia. The only way I think they'd get in it is if they beat Georgia in the SEC championship, and I don't know if that happens or not, but we'll have to wait and see. I mean, I don't think Georgia is as good as they have been in the past, so they're not playing that well right now. So we'll see. That's a tough question, though. That's a tough question. That's the toughest question of them all, and as soon as you asked me, I put my head down. I said I'm going to say Michigan, but what about you? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 34:57

I Now that Oklahoma's knocked off Texas. I think Oklahoma's got a real good shot. It's hard to go against Georgia and Florida State. You think Florida State's one of them. Florida State's got a shot. Michigan looks really good, but they're going into seven games right now and they haven't played anybody, so it's possible they could be there. I mean, I'd like to see a high stake get there. They got some offensive line issues that they need to address, but it's always fun. It's a great thing to watch and I really enjoy the college football season yeah, probably more than the NFL.

Speaker 3: 35:43

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 35:46

Especially when you're a Browns fan like. I am yeah, yeah. You know so. But, Coach, thank you so much for reaching out and wanting to be on the podcast.

Speaker 3: 36:00

And I just want to say hello to everybody in the state of Ohio. Please forgive me for picking Michigan over Ohio State.

Speaker 2: 36:07

I'm sorry, that's okay. Honesty is the best policy. Yeah, yeah, coach, thanks again so much, and I really do appreciate it. Thank you, ken. You have a wonderful day. Special thanks to Tommy Moffitt for joining the Athlete One podcast. Would you like to have Tommy Moffitt and his workouts available for your program? Regardless of sport, then you want to tune in to our next episode as we discuss the Moffitt method, a lifting and conditioning program designed specifically for a sport you coach or play. You won't want to miss it. The athlete one podcast was powered by the netting professionals improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. And, as always, thanks for listening to the athlete one podcast.