Smith's Style May Be Unorthodox, but His Players Love his Ways
Defensive line says there is a method to the madness
Mike Brohard
The defensive line was walking to their current meeting room – Colorado State’s media room in these pandemic times – and they knew their position coach was up to something as soon as they turned the corner.
In the doorway was a track hurdle. And not a high hurdle, either. No, this was set low and it stood in the doorway to get into the room. Something misplaced by the track team?
Nope. It was placed there for a reason by defensive line coach Antoine Smith.
“He does these things all the time,” defensive end Scott Patchan said. “But you see the production of it, if that makes sense. Everything he does, there’s a message to the madness.”
It was just the second full week of spring camp and it followed the first scrimmage. Smith was not happy with the pad level of his unit, so he found a hurdle to make a point – to gain access into the meeting, each and every one of them was going to have to crawl underneath.
This isn’t the first instance of something like this from Smith. Nor will it be the last. Of that, Toby McBride is positive.
“Like the hurdle, only insane kind of coaches, kind of insane in the mind would so something like that,” the senior said. “He knows he’s insane; he says it every day. We all know it. We call him crazy, but he loves it. He lives for that.”
Patchan said he’s moved around assigned chairs just to keep the players on their toes. They’ve got to pay attention to the details, on and off the field. In this room, for this group, it is a perfect style.
None of it is designed to be easy. Smith pushes them to their limits. He likes to compare it to training wrestlers and tell his players what they’re doing is tougher than that. McBride, a three-time state champ and a national champ, disagrees, but he allows Smith this latitude.
“When you coach them every day like it’s a game day, and everything you would do starts with detail; everybody uses this word, detail,” Smith said. “But most people don’t live up to that. We grade every single rep they take, no matter what it is. There’s nowhere to look, there’s nowhere to run, there’s nowhere to hide. What has happened is, that’s really enhanced the culture in our room.”
No question, it works.
The defensive front keyed the major improvements of a shortened 2020 season. The Rams only allowed 108 yards per game rushing, which stood 12th in the nation. The pass rush produced 16 sacks, ranking it fourth nationally per game, and Patchan ranked third with 1.38 per contest.
Over and over, they will all learn details matter. In everything.
“That’s something that we lacked,” McBride said. “Is your foot six inches outside the offensive tackle? Is your hand on the crotch-five, things like that. That will win the game and help you shed a block a little bit better, that’s what we were missing. So to have him go through and coach the little things on every single position, every single stunt, every single play is what we needed to go to that next level.”
If you play for Antoine Smith, you have to be ready to storm Normandy every day. His guys kinda dig on him.Steve Addazio
And when he’s done teaching him football, McBride said Smith asks about his grades, his nutrition and his general wellbeing. What works between the white lines carries over to life.
The first goal in the room is to be the best they can be as a unit. The next step is to be the best defensive front in the Mountain West, which they already believe they are. The progression is to become the best group in the nation.
So they study what others do around the country. How they are coached, what they do well, what they don’t and use it as comparison. They watch their own film to correct mistakes and praise what is being done well.
The details matter for everyone. While Patchan had a great first year in a Rams uniform, Smith said he had to start from the beginning with him. The same went for returners like Manny Jones, Ellison Hubbard and Devon Phillips, guys who had a stack of career starts on their resume.
None of them were with Smith as their coach, however.
He said they discuss three things, only the first two at length: Consistency and dependability. The third is toughness, but that, Smith said, will become a natural byproduct of what he calls the “old-school wrestling” style workouts and the first two topics.
“We’re still working on the details of some of schemes defensively,” Smith said. “We’re improving, but the way I’m wired, if it’s not all right, it’s not right. I think what’s happening is our kids in this room, there’s such a standard of expectation and a sense of letdown, they’re feeding off of each other. They’re coaching each other, and that’s what makes this job really special.”
A few other things add to the feeling for him.
One, all of those lessons he’s teaching are being learned. He sees it when they discuss schemes and techniques in meetings. In fact, he’s pretty sure about five of them could walk out into the world and become defensive line coaches right now. He’s confident from the way they talk about defensive line play and the way they draw plays up on the whiteboard.
Secondly, the room is full when it didn’t have to be. McBride could have left. Same with Patchan, Hubbard and Jones. Instead, they’re all back trying to get it all right.
“The first thing it meant to me was we have a strong relationship. We’ve all kind of put our egos aside and opened up and really got to know each other and love each other,” Smith said. “It also shows in my humble opinion, how committed they think I am to them of helping them to extend their careers, which means the world to me.”
To get them there, he has to keep throwing hurdles at them, metaphorically and physically.
Some of what Smith does may seem unorthodox to the outside world, even to some within the program outside of the defensive line group, but Smith’s hire was an easy choice for Steve Addazio when he took over the program.
“First of all, he’s a very loyal guy. Number two, he’s a hell of a fundamental football coach,” Addazio said. “Number three, he coaches his guys really hard, he’s really tough on them, but the dude really cares about his players. He has a tremendous relationship with them. He’s involved with their whole lives.
“If you play for Antoine Smith, you have to be ready to storm Normandy every day. His guys kinda dig on him.”
There’s the key. Smith has built a relationship with the players he mentors.
They will walk under a hurdle for him. They will bust through a wall for him. He will scold them for their own betterment, then cook for them. He doesn’t treat them all the same, because each one of them is different.
It’s not favoritism, Patchan said. It’s Smith understanding each of them as people and how to get the most out of them as football players. The buttons he pushes to get to Patchan may not work on Hubbard.
Smith is a button pusher. And he knows how to find the right ones.
“He’s a good boss. You’ll find some way to get somebody to do something right,” Patchan said. “He’s going to find a way to motivate you and get the best out of you. This spring, I think we’ve already seen a lot of growth out of the younger guys who weren’t necessarily performing at their best in the fall, but they’re really starting to take on to the coaching.
“That’s not to say he’s on us all the time. He rewards us all the time. This guy feeds us more than anybody. I can honestly say off the top of my head, I ate at my coach’s house at Miami less than five times in five years. I’ve had more meals up at Horsetooth at Coach Smith’s house than anybody else. The whole staff, they have the philosophy of coaching you hard and loving your harder. You see it and feel it as a player.”
So when McBride turned the corner and saw the hurdle, there was no hesitation – he was going to go under it, no questions asked. If this was the way Smith had chosen to teach them to play with flat backs and low pad level, then this was the way they were going to learn.
And they literally followed their leader.
“He went right under it himself, so I was like, ‘alright, if he can do it, I can do it, knee braces and all,’” he said. “I’ll figure out a way.
“It was kind of funny, but I found a way to get it done with a chuckle.”
The hurdle remained there for about 10 days. As Smith combed through practice tape, he noticed the pad level was where it should be and nobody was standing up anymore when the ball was snapped. So last Thursday after practice, the hurdle had been moved to the side.
“Guess what?” Smith said. “We’ve corrected it pretty fast.”
For now, they can walk through the door as normal. But they also know the hurdle can just as soon block their path. But as they entered the room, they all made sure to check the seating assignments.
With Smith, they never know what’s coming next.