Chris Hatcher, Samford's head football coach, tells McElroy & Cubelic why he changed his whole offseason plans for the better, what positions he has some concerns & plans to improve, what he saw in Kirby Smart & Will Muschamp when they were young, and what he'll always remember about Mike Leach
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McElroy and Kublik in the morning starts now. All right, welcome back in. McElroy and Kublik in the morning, 8 a.m., Friday, July 26, right here on JOX 94.5. Going to talk some Sanford Bulldogs with Chris Hatcher here in just a moment. First, I'll tell you about Ox Foundation Solutions. Ox Foundation Solutions is a company that's been in the business for a long time.

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How do you sort of finally turn that page and make sure everybody's getting dialed in and get away from the distractions a little bit and start focusing in on football? Well, we've had a really good summer. And, you know, nowadays there's really no, like, spring season, fall season, training camp. It's just all one big season where you train all year round. So I think that the transition's a little bit easier. But, you know,

We've had a couple weeks of vacation for our guys. I'm a big believer in giving them a couple weeks off in the summer just to get away. We came back. We're back working out this week, camp on Wednesday. So I think our guys will be ready to go when the time comes. How have you structured the offseason now with guys having some freedom and some ability and the transfer portal being open when it's open? What does your offseason schedule look like, Coach?

Well, it kind of coincides with our academic schedule that we have. And then plus, we don't have the resources to keep our guys there the entire summer. So we have to be a little bit creative when it comes to that. So our guys get a few weeks off in May between the summer term and the end of the spring semester. We bring them to summer one, so we have five weeks of work.

And then I give them three weeks off, and then I bring them back a week and a half to get their legs back underneath them before we start camp. And it's really worked good for us. Greg, you know, again, I'm a big guy that, hey, you've got to have it. And now the coaches, too. 100%. But the players, it just seems they come back fast.

fresh and ready to go. And then one thing I started doing a few years back during the spring, I quit practicing on Saturdays in spring practice, and we get our work done during the week just to give the guys a couple extra weekends throughout the course of the year. And I've seen that pay really big dividends with the freshness of our team mentally as well as physically. I can see that being super valuable. Coach, have you ever noticed, though, like I remember in our day,

Cole will probably vouch for this, maybe even more so when Cole was playing because football was definitely our job for sure, but we didn't have access to the nutrition stuff. We didn't have awareness on that. It's like keep your weight up, and that's pretty much it, and we all knew how to do that. But help me understand this. When you let guys go for three weeks in the summer, if I had teammates that were home for three weeks in the summer, they'd come back 40 pounds heavier and be completely unprepared to take the field.

It seems like the modern player is way more accountable...

because of how they've kind of been trained and how specialized the training has gotten, the awareness and nutrition and sleep and things like this. So when you let the guys go, I mean, do they come back in just as good a shape as you had when they were leaving for those three-week breaks? You know, it's a great question. I think they're conditioned to do that. Of course, they're not going to work out as hard back home as they would if the strength and conditioning coach was watching over them each and every day. But for the most part –

The good players that we're counting on playing come back in excellent condition. I know back in the day if the coach gave me three weeks off, I would have come back in really bad shape. It would have been a problem. I'd be tanned from my days at the pool. But these guys are more cognizant of their bodies. They're used to it, like you mentioned. Yes, I worry about it, especially week three.

But, you know, it just fits our schedule. It fits our budget, if you will. If I had a little bit more money, maybe two weeks would be all I would do. But I do think that the mental side of it sometimes outweighs, hey, you know, if they come back a little out of shape, at least them getting away from here for a little while is well worth it.

Well worth it. All right, August 31st, 5 p.m., you'll go to Carrollton, Georgia, an area of the planet that you're pretty familiar with. You'll play West Georgia to open up the season. And one thing I know people are excited about with your group is going to be offense. I mean, you're running traditional air raid stuff. People are excited about that. So a lot of that quarterback driven. Just give us an idea heading into fall camp where you are with your quarterback situation right now. Well, that's the biggest battle. Well, there's really two things that concern me, that and our running back position.

And I know you say tradition with your run-the-down-ball hat that you wear. I see you walking by my house all the time. Is that Jay Stanton, our running back, led the Southern Conference in rushing last year. So I just want that known, Greg. He could do that on one running play that you carry. We get really good at that play. But we do have a battle at quarterback. Quincy Crittenton and Nick Scalzo, a transfer from Kentucky who came in a couple years ago.

Quincy, as you well know, led us to our first home playoff victory in the history of Sanford when Michael Hires got injured there late in the season. Both of those bring a dynamic we haven't had in a little while. I hate to say they're more athletic than Mike because Mike was a

a really good athlete. But they like to run the ball a little bit more. So it's going to be interesting to see who wins that battle. But just as important, we lost Jay Stanton, who led the league in Russian, who seems like he's been on my team for the 10 years that I've been the coach at Sanford. He's playing when I called you games in COVID spring. He was there a long time. And he's gone. So we've got to find a replacement for him.

And those would probably be the two biggest areas that will go into the season with a little skepticism and a little bit of unknown. How quickly would you like to resolve the quarterback situation? Because I feel like in your offense in particular, it's so rep-driven that

And I know that you always, I'm sure, I haven't been to practice, but if I were to just visualize, you've got five quarterbacks throwing at a time. The guys throw a million balls a day. If it's anything like Coach Leach, that's the way it was probably structured. So looking at just how quickly you'd like, though, to make that call,

What does that timeline look like for you? Wish we made it yesterday. And by the way, you're more than welcome to come to practice anytime. Well, I appreciate it. It's literally six minutes from the house, so I think I can make it there. Come on, come on. You know, I guess it's like,

We'll know when we know. We've structured practice a little bit differently than the old way that I used to do it like Mike Leach. Our ones and twos get the same amount of reps now. It's just who you're going to be, what receiving core you're working with. I've played two quarterbacks before.

You know, it doesn't bother me if they both can add some value to the team, but I really do like to have it set one and two. And, you know, who knows? I may pick the wrong one. You go out game one and you have to throw the other guy and he catches fire and he becomes a starter. That's happened throughout my coaching tenure as well. But ideally, have a one and two and make the decision as quickly as possible.

I was looking down the rest of your schedule, and if you don't mind, I kind of want to settle a little something here on the show. On October the 19th, you'll play Mercer. Now, Drew Kronick's out, and I think he called his own plays. I'm not sure, but I know he's been an offensive guy forever. Mike Jacobs comes in. How would you describe the Mercer offense you've seen the last few years?

Well, it's pretty dynamic. Drew Cronick's dad was a great high school coach in Georgia who ran the wing tee. And so he took a lot of wing tee principles. They do a lot of shifts. Like I heard you all talking about Vanderbilt. I do listen to your show, and I heard you talk about Vanderbilt, Clark Lee, talk about a lot of unbalanced sets, getting people out gap. That's what they tried to do.

They did a really good job, and then they have two great receivers that are as good as anybody in the league. We've tried to have a conversation about the creativity of that offense, and one half has kind of tried to shut that down, and the other half has tried to talk about it. So I figured you could maybe clear it up for us here. Well, I think the running game part of it is very creative, but how they shift the line and then all the little wing T-fakes.

It's, you know, the passing game is, hey, get everybody sucked in the box and let those two dudes go deep, and we'll throw it deep to them. And they're really good at it. What they're going to do this year, I have no idea. They're down the road. Obviously not good enough. I'm trying to find a quarterback and a running back. Chris Hatcher, Sanford head coach, joining us in studio. But you mentioned when we talked to Clark Lee, he said he went and did a study on unbalanced formations. Obviously him more from the defensive side looking at things.

And Greg and I were talking about it the other day. I think when people hear that, they think, oh, tackle over. Or maybe what Michigan will run every now and then when they have all their tight ends lined up on the right side of the line. But you can do similar things from a receiver standpoint to get people lined up the way that you sort of want them to. Like how –

Can you just tell us how much you utilize your formations, maybe from an unbalanced perspective with receivers and backs, to try to get people lined up certain ways? We do that. We change it up week to week, a certain amount of plays. I think, number one, though, before you can do that, you've got to have an offense.

You've got to have a base offense. And the way we install our offense is everything's two by two. And that helps the quarterback progression. It helps everybody know what to do. And when we get really good at that, then that's when we can start tinkering and playing around with motions and flipping guys around and moving them over. But if you don't do that a little bit week to week,

Defense was a hone in on you. And you got to do some different things to keep them off balance. And that's a good way to do it. How would you assess where the air raid has evolved in looking at?

Mike Leach, in his last year, reluctantly ran the ball a little more than you would anticipate. How do you feel like the offense has evolved over the course of time? What's the next layer of evolution, do you think?

Well, I think it's a good question, and I always go back, Greg, on the air raid. It's a little bit more of just a philosophy of being simple, repetition-based,

You know, I know some guys that that that are primarily run guys that that I talk to a good bit. High school coaches that follow our our our plan of how we practice, how we rep. They just do it more with the run game. So it's a little bit of a philosophy. But I do think.

You know, with Art Browse, their system that Jeff Levy will be running at Mississippi State, you know, where they run a lot of the deep option game off of the inside zone and the outside or the mid zone. They've had great success. And we've actually taken some of their run schemes and RPOs and incorporated it with our, you know, progression reads.

and I think it's like anything, you're always just trying to find a little niche here or there that fits your philosophy, and more importantly, can you practice it, and does your quarterback get it? And I think that's, when you talk about evolution, I think it's like anything, you're always trying to, you know, find a little bit of edge. In fact, we're going to line up in a little bit different formation this year. We'll see if it works.

I want to get your thoughts just on the league, the schedule. You go to Florida week two. We mentioned that West Georgia week one. Getting Alabama State at home, that's going to be a cool game. That should be one that draws a pretty big crowd. But the league has sort of changed and morphed. We talked about it in the segment before you came in, not referencing that far back, but just in the last couple of years, it felt like all the offenses were kind of going your direction, wide open, spread out, sort of air raid based, if you will.

Greg and I have had multiple conversations. You've heard a few of them about how it feels like some things are coming full circle a little bit in college football now. How do you sort of, from a 1,000-foot view, assess this league that you're heading into this season? Well, I think, first of all, it's just great parity in our league. And we're one of the few FCS conferences that everybody plays everybody every year.

So, you know, when you've been in the league a long time, you know, I could sit there other than the new coaches and I can tell you everything those guys are going to do. And they could probably tell you everything we're going to do. So that makes it more difficult. I think with the transfer portal, there's a lot more unknown now. It's a little bit like when I was in Division II. You could flip your roster year to year because in Division II you have no APR. You were always big into transfers.

So you're not real sure with these preseason rankings what the other teams brought in as far as the transfer part of it goes. So it's a very interesting league. It's a unique league. When I first got in, there were four teams that ran the option, the true triple option. But now they took out the cut rules.

You know, you can't cut on the perimeter anymore. And that has completely wiped the triple option out. It is unbelievable to see just that one rule just took away their greatest advantage of cutting guys on the perimeter. So I think we're a little bit more balanced league as far as throwing the ball and running the ball. And I think that's kind of where we're headed right now. All right.

All right, so Chris Hatcher, Sanford head football coach, joining us in studio. Do you mind hanging around one more second? Sure, I'm here as long as you guys need me. We'll talk some defense on the other side. Got a pretty cool announcement that you're going to help us with on the other side as well. Before we do that, I'll tell you about Gusty Goulds and the Gusty Goulds Group. If you're looking for a home in the Birmingham area, call 205-542-1996.

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205-542-1996 or visit gustygoolisgroup.com. More with Chris Hatcher in studio next right here on Jocks 94.5. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kublik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Gap or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, welcome back in, McElroy.

Hey, Kubelik in the morning, 819 a.m. It is Friday, July 26th, right here on Jocks 94.5. Bill Smith, Buick GMC dealer of the year, the national champion. Take the short drive up to Coleman. We're lucky to have him so close to us.

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Shop online. Have it delivered right to your driveway at BillSnapuickGFC.com. All right, Sanford Head Football Coach Chris Hatcher joining us in the studio. We talked about your offense, quarterback situation. You mentioned running back, very productive player that's going to have to be replaced. What about defense? What do you like? Maybe heading into fall camp? What do you need to learn about that group during fall camp? If spring's any indication, I'm really excited about that side of the ball. Chris Boone, who has been our defensive coordinator, left us. He's the linebacker coach at Troy now.

We heard Adam Brathwaite, who's been multiple places, including Chattanooga. I've actually played against him. Brings a more attacking style, more blitzing, which is a little bit more in sync with the way we like to play offense. And, I mean, he brings on day one from the rafters, a

And so I'm excited about it. And, you know, of course, a quarterback's best friend is a good running back and a great defense. And if the spring's any indication, I really think that could be a strength for us as we kind of find our rhythm on offense with breaking in a new QB and running back.

I know you've got Noah Martin back at linebacker, so of course that has to help regardless of what style you're going to play. Yeah, well, he's a great competitor. He's a very smart player and commands a lot of respect in the locker room. So he's been a great bridge between the coordinators. And then also Jaden Mosley, a player that is from Mobile, Alabama. I believe those two guys could be one of the top duos in the league inside linebacker positions.

When you look at defensive adjustments, it's not that dissimilar to offense. We just talk a little more about the offensive innovations. I've seen philosophical changes pretty dramatically defensively the last few years. You see some coaches that embrace an attacking style like you just referenced where you're blitzing from all three levels with –

overloads and simulated pressures and all these unique looks. And then you've seen the groups that say, hey, we're going to rush three, drop eight, and just force you to dink and dunk. So when you look at just the – there's very few that seem to be in between. Also, it's kind of wild to me. So when you look at just how philosophically defenses have evolved, where do you think the next iteration of defense is going with all the RPO and the ways that offenses are challenging them?

Well, I think they're just like offensive coaches, Greg. They're always trying to find that niche. And instead of being reactive how they were, I think, a few years ago, they're starting to force the issue more. And, you know, I look at like Brent Venables, you know, guys like that that come from everywhere.

The analytics say offensively the less third downs you have, the better offense you are. Not necessarily how good you are on third down, just stay away from third down. Get first downs on first and second down. And I think defensive coaches have taken that philosophy. At least that's what I preach to our defense.

is, hey, attack on first and second down. Put them in third and really long where you hold all the cards. So I think they're more proactive. And off the air we were talking, you know, Kirby Smart was by defense a coordinator back in 2001. It was his first coordinator job. And he would blitz all the time in practice. And then we'd get to the game and he'd run four, three, cover two, and quarters every single play.

And you just see how he's changed because he brings them from everywhere now. So I just think that that shift in philosophy, hey, let's go attack them and force the issue a little bit more. You're seeing that more out of defensive coordinators now. Did you kind of see some of this in him early in his coaching career?

Yeah, well, I think a lot of it has to do with what type of players you have. You know, I talk all the time, but one of the greatest coaches I've ever worked for is Will Muschamp, you know, or worked with was Will. He was my first defensive coordinator in 2000. And we were, you know, middle to the pack.

and the statistics, but we didn't have that great of – our players were not there. The next year, I think we finished second in total defense that year, playing four three-quarters, cover two. But, man, we had four defensive linemen that nobody could block in Division II. And when you have those type of players, hey, you just – you can do whatever you want to do. So –

But, yeah, both of those guys I think were innovative at that time, maybe a little simpler. But you just see guys wanting to force that issue and putting the offense at a disadvantage when it does come to third down. Did you sort of see that relentless nature in those two guys too, like not wanting to leave the facility or just kind of hanging around the entire time?

especially the things with Kirby that have kind of gotten him to where he is today? Well, I think both of them – Kirby's really smart, number one. I mean, you don't do what you do if you're not – you have some intellect about you. But the passion, the coach, you know, I see him on the sideline now. He coached that away as a secondary coach 24 years ago back in 2000 in Valdosta, Georgia. So, yeah.

Both of those guys have a relentless passion to succeed, I guess would be the best compliment that I could give them. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, I don't think we've had you in since we lost Coach Leach. I mean, I know, I think most people know what he meant to you. And now that you've had some time to kind of reflect and look back, are there different things that you think about now that you didn't think about before that either stay with you of your time together or your conversations that you had?

Yeah, you know, I think about him a lot. The hardest thing is you just want to pick the phone up and call him and see what type of wisdom he could put on you that had nothing to do with football. Okay. I got a lot of that in attempted interviews, by the way.

I'm not saying he didn't do this, but as a coach, you get so entrenched in the season. I hate to say the grind because I love it. But you've got to take some time for yourself. We talked about it earlier, a little vacation here and there, a couple days off. You've got to really focus on taking care of yourself because if you don't do that –

this football now with the 365 days of recruiting will eat you up and chew you out. And I think you're starting to see that with some comments that I read of some of the higher-level coaches in football that may be starting to burn out a little bit. I think it won't take long. And when these guys are making $13 million a year, I can promise you if I'm making $13 million a year, I'm working for about $30.

One year, and then I'm retiring. It's pretty wild, though, Coach, when you look at it. You talk to these coaches like they're having to constantly renegotiate with their players. Do you have to deal with that at your level as well? I do, not on the scale that those guys have to deal with. But, you know, like this past season, three of my top players, you know, came in at the end of the year and said one of them went to Central Florida, one went to Buffalo, one went to Memphis.

just got good deals. They were really good players for us. You stand up, you shake their hand, you wish them the very best of luck, but you go in not expecting in that recruiting class to have to replace those three players. Then all of a sudden,

you're out scrambling trying to bring some guys in to replace them. I think the biggest headache that I have that causes me the most anxiety is just roster management.

Back in the day, right now, I would know, hey, I've got to go sign three offensive linemen in this class. I need a quarterback. I need two linebackers. I need a safety, arbitrarily, whatever you need. Now, you're recruiting four or five potential scholarship players at every position because you just don't know how the roster is going to look at the end of the season. Has that forced – we talked about –

A couple weeks ago, versatility with players. The whole Caleb Downs thing going to Ohio State and Ryan Day saying, we're repping him at running back.

We kind of got into a long conversation accidentally about, well, maybe more guys will start getting different looks at different spots because you don't have a second team left tackle. So you've got to cross-train all your offensive linemen. Or you only have one true nickel. So your corners are going to have to start repping at nickel. Your safety is going to have to start repping at nickel a bit more. Maybe a linebacker gets some looks there. Do you focus a little bit more on maybe position versatility because of those unknowns? No.

I think at certain positions you do. I think like at offensive line, you know, we've narrowed it down to you're a combo or you're a tackle. Okay, so if you're a center guard, you've got to be able to play all three. If you're a tackle, you've got to be able to play both sides just because of injuries and guys leave and you may have to flip them around. Defensively, I think the biggest spot is, like you just said, a corner play in the nickel position. You know, can he do that?

But at certain positions, I've just never been a big proponent of like, hey, let's put this quarterback in and give him one drive a game because he's a real athletic guy. I think you call some issues there. You get out of rhythm. So certain positions I would say no, but the ones you mentioned I think are definitely that you have to do that now because you just don't know where it's going to end up at the end of the season.

Absolutely. One thing I know we're excited about here is for your home games, Damian Mitchell is going to be back on the call for your games with Blake Gardner. We love having our guys out at football games each and every week, so having him watching your team and how you guys operate offensively and being a part of Sanford football. We love talking about you guys here on the show, but

Something I know that you can officially announce today that we're going to have that back and Damian be with you guys. We're pumped about that as well. Well, I'm excited about it too. He does a great job. I look forward to his insight each week when we do our conference calls to talk about the upcoming opponent. So he's a great asset to our team.

And we're excited to have him. And as always, we appreciate you guys giving us some love. And we think we bring a great brand of football to the Southern Conference, but especially the Birmingham area. And we do appreciate you guys giving us a little love each and every week.

Hey, I've seen some of the pictures that Martin's been tweeting out. This new facility is going to be really nice for you guys. It is. It's going to enhance the experience of all the students at Stanford. It's going to enhance our game day experience closing in the north end zone. They're laying down the final pieces of the turf, so maybe we can start practicing on it next week.

but there has been a lot of inconveniences with the construction. But when it's all complete, it's going to give Sanford an entirely new look. I really hope that it's going to help us in our recruiting efforts as well. It makes so much sense. Even when you would just go watch a game, it felt like so much wasted space right there, except for the bands get to go sit down over there. Other than that, it's going to be perfect for the facility and how everything's laid out. So I'm excited for you guys to get it.

And back to what Greg said a moment ago. Quickly, I saw this yesterday. Mark Stoops in an interview said, quote, I don't know how long I can take dealing with what I've dealt with myself personally. I can only do so much. I've never felt this kind of stress and pressure. Yeah, you're going to find it. I mean, you know, you talk about the salaries and I know people say, well, the guy makes this amount of money. He shouldn't be complaining about it. I'll be honest. I mean, there's a lot of people out there.

There's maybe a couple guys at Coach Ball that they're money-driven. Most of us, we got into coaching to help people be a part of a team. But you said Coach Ball right there. These guys at this level, how much time are they actually spending coaching ball? I think that's where the anxiety and the stress has come, what they got into the game with.

is fading away. And I do think that's a benefit of our level a little bit, that we're not as much NIL-driven as the larger or the higher level. And I think that's what keeps my sanity, is I still get to coach quarterbacks every day. I still get to call the plays. So I do have the coaching potential.

part of it to get my mind off the roster management, if you will. You call your own plays. Do you think you would feel comfortable doing that if you had, say, everything to manage that Mark Stoops has to manage? I thought about that in a great deal. Sometimes if I got a job at the next level, then you'd have to assess why did I get it. Was it because I was calling good plays on Saturday or not? You wouldn't want to give that up.

The one thing, though, at that level is you do have a lot more staff and an abrasive staff. And if you hire the right guys, which I've been fortunate even with – I have one chief of staff, and they've always done a great job, which has allowed me to set the schedule up in such a way that I could –

Right.

It's a lot less fun, too. I couldn't imagine giving up play-calling responsibility. That's why you get in the game, is it not? That would be a hard thing to give up. You do like that. You like that pressure, the butter. It's like being the quarterback, which you like having the ball in your hands, and sometimes as a play-caller you feel that way. It does get hectic when all your third downs are real long. So our goal each and every week is that all our third downs may be short ones.

There you go. Well, Coach, thanks for stopping in. We'll definitely have you back in before the season, during the season. But it was cool catching up with you. Love talking Stanford football and look forward to catching up again soon. You got it. Thank you, guys. I'm sorry for wearing my run-the-damn-ball hats all the time. I know that bothers you.

Well, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just something you've got to even it out. You've got to be a little more balanced. You need to throw the damn ball hat and wear them, you know, half, you know, a couple of days a week just to even out and become a more balanced offense over there. Son's a coach, right? Path of least resistance. And Cole just wants to he's like Les Miles. He just wants to run against a brick wall.

And that's fine. Like you and I, we'll just use space to our advantage. And that's cool. That's fine. Cole will just coach back in 1974. And you and I can coach in the modern day. That's the way it's going to work. At least I'll get to actually coach if that's what I'm coaching. So I'm not going to have to worry about the other stuff. Well, Coach Hatch and I will just negotiate some contracts and then we'll go coach. It'll be super fun. I'm in.

We're going to talk a little bit more Big Ten media days, some ACC media days on the other side. You have to wait for that. But one thing you never have to wait for, GMAC, is your dental care. That's because Family Cadental has you taken care of. The urgent care officer you can be seen the same day.

We'll be right back.

Family Credential, they can see you today and they can see you tomorrow. So give them a call today at 874-9605. It's Family Credential, 874-9605. All right, when we come back, more college football next right here on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning. The capital of the sports talk nation. This is Jux 94.5 and JuxFM.com.

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