Andrews takes helm of McClain football
GREENFIELD — For the first time in a decade, the McClain Tigers have a new head coach in charge of their football program.
The McClain football program welcomes a new face and new era to their football program in head coach Jeremey Andrews, taking over the spot vacated by former head coach Randy Closson, who resigned this past winter to spend more time with his family.
Andrews, who has coached at the assistant level in various parts of the country, will be a head coach for the first time, but don’t let that fool you. He’s been a part of many successful programs in Florida, Georgia and Ohio.
Andrews and his wife, Kristin (a nurse at Clinton Memorial Hospital), have two children: a son, Joshua (12) and a daughter, Emily (7).
“I’m very excited,” Andrews told The Highland County Press. “This is my first head coaching job, but I’ve been a varsity assistant for 14 years, so it is an opportunity I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
“I’m just incredibly lucky that it came in a place like Greenfield. This is a wonderful school, a good program and everyone I’ve met has been wonderful. I feel blessed to have this opportunity.”
The new football coach is a 1997 Gahanna Lincoln High School graduate and a graduate of The Ohio State University. His first coaching job was from 1999-2001 at Columbus South High School, starting when he was just 20 years old, followed by a two-year stop at Union County High School in Butler, Fla.
While at Union County in his second season as an assistant, the team played in the state championship game.
That team in Union County had future NFL player C.J. Spiller, a former first-round draft choice by the Buffalo Bills and Kevin Alexander who played for the Denver Broncos. From there, Andrews coached at Sycamore High School in Pleasant View, Tenn. (outside of Nashville) for three seasons, and in the third season with the program, the team reached the state quarterfinals.
After that stop, Andrews coached six seasons at Wilmington High School, where in ’09 the Hurricane reached the state playoffs. The coaching of NFL players will continue this NFL season with Quinten Rollins set to be a potential first- or second-round draft selection in the 2015 NFL Draft.
In those stops, Andrews has been an offensive line coach, defensive line coach, linebackers coach, wide receivers coach, a special teams coordinator and defensive coordinator. For the Tigers, their new direction can go nowhere but up after a rough 2014 season where the program went winless. Andrews said there is something he wants all of his players to know right off the bat …”their most important day as a football player is today.”
“What I’m going to hammer home to these guys is the most important day in the history of the program is today,” Andrews said. “We have to get better today. It isn’t about what happened in the past or what happens in two weeks … the most important day of your football life is today. We have to attack every day like that. Everything we do has to be to prepare to win … with the kids, coaches … everybody.”
When it comes to coaching, Andrews considers himself an offensive coach, since most of his time as a varsity assistant came as an o-line coach.
Taking the past two seasons off from coaching football, Andrews said he hasn’t left the game during that time, but instead traveled to watch games at other venues and watched practices of various teams. “I’ve learned just as much football, or even more, during that time than I did when I was coaching, so with two years away from coaching, I’m fresh and ready to go.
“My first year away from coaching, I had foot surgery so I was unable physically to coach, and last year it worked out to where I just didn’t coach.”
The new MHS coach also praised former head coach Closson, as Coach Closson has been helping with the transition of Andrews becoming the head coach.
“Randy is a class act,” he said. “He is helping me to be successful. Even Coach (Rob) Vida told me how great of a person and coach Randy is, so there is a lot of respect for him from not only myself, but Coach Vida.”
Ask any football coach, and they will tell you about what other coaches have done to mentor and mold their coaching careers. Andrews is no different, naming two coaches who really left their mark in the way he coaches.
“My biggest influence in coaching would be the guy who hired me in Florida, Buddy Nobles,” Andrews said. “He’s a great coach and won six or seven state titles as an assistant before becoming a head coach. I was the first coach he hired when he got the job in Florida.
“After going 2-8 his first year, he made it to a state championship game his second year. He just got his second head coaching job in Georgia, and they just made it to the state championship game in his first season. He knows how to rebuild programs fast, so I’ve already been on the phone with him for three hours.”
More locally, Andrews spoke about another coaching mentor in former Wilmington head coach Rob Vida.
“He’s the best defensive coach I’ve ever been around,” Andrews said. “His ability to coach defense is unparalleled. He was an unappreciated asset at Wilmington. He was tough … both of those coaches were incredibly tough on me. They held you accountable, and if you had thin skin, you couldn’t work for those guys.”
From those coaches and with his own spin on the game of football, Andrews has a philosophy on the game that comes down to three simple things.
“All good teams have three things in common,” Andrews said. “The first thing is teams have good football technique. They know how to play the game and how to play their position. We are going to concentrate a lot on the little things. We need to learn how to be good football players.
“The second things is fitness … we must be strong and fast. All good football teams are strong and fast. The third thing is all good teams are competitive. We have to want to win at everything we do. No matter where … on the track, in the weight room, in the classroom … we have to get used to winning. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t matter what you do on offense or defense … if teams do those three things, they are successful.”
Within that philosophy of football comes Andrews’ philosophy on offense and defense, and with his beliefs, it is certain he’ll fit right into the South Central Ohio League style of football.
“Offensively, I want to be multiple,” he said. “Whether we want to get in an I-Formation and pound on people or if we spread it out and throw, we want to be able to do that all out of our base offense.
“On defense, we want to stop the run, get after the quarterback and tell the defensive backs to hang on. I like aggressive defense, and a defensive coordinator might be able to talk me out of it, but my philosophy is high-pressure defense.”
While speaking about how he became the head coach and the reason why he accepted the offer, Andrews said the McClain coaching job was the only head coaching position he applied for.
That reasoning came from when he was with Wilmington, as the Hurricane played annual scrimmages with the Tigers before WHS joined the SCOL this past season.
A lot of his reasoning came from the people within the program and school system.
“The reason this was my only application was from my time at Wilmington I realized just how special McClain is,” he said. “When we scrimmaged McClain every year, the two things that stuck out were just how tough Greenfield kids are, because they were always physical.
“The second thing was the parents after the scrimmage would feed everyone, and I’ve never seen a group of parents treat a group of kids and coaches like they do here. It made an impact on me, and when I saw this job come open, I jumped on it and sent in a résumé.”
Andrews knows the process of getting the Tigers into the mix of the SCOL title picture won’t occur over night, but be a process that will take time.
“There is nothing magic about building a winner,” he said. “I have to prepare to win, and the players have to prepare to win. It is a long process, and it will take everyone involved to build a winner. I have to demand that we win.”