Keith Heyward's Lamar Jackson Story and Coaching OLBs
This is a continuing series from interviews with new staff members Brian Johnson, Keith Heyward, Tre Watson and Geep Chryst. Today continues with OLBs coach Keith Heyward, his front row seat to Lamar Jackson's rise at Louisville and his transition to coaching outside linebackers.
New Staff Series: Gratitude a Theme | Chryst on Analytics | Watson's Persistence Paid Off
Keith Heyward has spent all but one year of his coaching career on the west coast, having played at Oregon State, an coaching the Beavers, Washington, USC, Cal Poly and Oregon before making his way to Cal. His one year spent away from the west coast? A season at Louisville in 2016. That year happened to coincide with one of the most meteoric rises in recent college football, that of Lamar Jackson. Heyward had a pretty good view of it as Louisville's defensive backs coach.
"I have a friend, Cort Dennison, he’s back there now," Heyward recalled, "I remember he said ‘we’ve got this quarterback, he’s really good, Lamar Jackson, he’s the real deal.’ You know, in practices, in scrimmages, Lamar would be like, ‘I got out of that one coach,’ and I’d say ‘the safety tackled you or would have tackled you there, he tapped you off,’ and he’d say, ‘coach, I’m not even running full speed,’ I’m like ‘get out of here.'"
Jackson had a solid freshman season at Louisville, starting 8 games, throwing 12 TDs to 8 INTs and running for 11 more, but he hadn't completely impressed the Cardinals' defensive backs coach.
"That first game, we played Charlotte," Heyward said, "he had an amazing game, but I’m like ‘yeah dude, but that was Charlotte.’ The second game, we played Syracuse, and he leapt over a guy and scored. I was like ‘that was impressive, but Syracuse is ehhhh.’ He said, ‘alright coach, I’m gonna show you.’"
Jackson did set a school record with 8 touchdowns (6 passing, 2 rushing) in the first half agains Charlotte and nearly had a 400 yard passing, 200 yard rushing game against Syracuse (missing it by one rushing yard). The next week, against second ranked Florida State, was the topper, as Jackson passed for a touchdown and ran for four in a 63-20 destruction. Jackson would go onto a Heisman trophy and an eventual NFL MVP trophy with the Baltimore Ravens.
"The third game we played Florida State, and he just went crazy," Heyward said, "You can go back and watch that game, after that game I gave him the bow down praise, ‘I see you, you’re the one,’ he was laughing. He’s a tremendous athlete as we’ve all seen, not that I hesitated or didn’t believe him, but after I saw that, I knew that dude was real, not just in that game, but the whole year. He ran a lot at Louisville, but throughout that year I saw him make some incredible throws and I knew he was a complete quarterback. What he did, he won the Heisman, he played some great ball, and it was great to be a part of that."
Heyward came back to the west coast after that year as a part of Willie Taggart's staff at Oregon, being held over on staff by Mario Cristobal, prior to coming down to Berkeley. This spring was the first time he has coached the outside linebacker position, and the adjustment has been a retraining process.
"It’s a different progression," Heyward noted, "being a defensive back a lot of your responsibility is going to come in the form of defending the pass. There will be parts of it that you’ll have to defend the run, but that’s not where you start. Being an outside linebacker, it all starts with setting edges and stopping the run. The biggest difference is pass rushing, now with those passing situations you have to pass rush, as a DB you rarely get to do that unless you’re sent on a blitz. The other part of it is coverage, and I think I was able to help them with that, not just to understand what their job is, but the overall of what was going on, where they fit in the coverage, and why we’re playing it like that."
In the meantime, Heyward has had help from the Bears defensive line coach, Andrew Browning. The two are working together both on the recruiting and the coaching side, as there's a bit of overlap between what the Bears do on the defensive line and at the outside linebacker position.
"Working with coach Browning, he’s a tremendous coach in understanding the techniques," Heyward said, "block recognition, differences between playing on edges or playing on top of somebody, block destruction, then the pass rush stuff. He’s brilliant, I think he’s a great coach and I’m always going to lean on him."
It's early in Heyward's tenure at Cal, but he has a relatively experienced group at OLB, with two super-seniors in Cam Goode and Kuony Deng, and a couple others who have taken their offseason work seriously in Orin Patu and Braxten Croteau. As he catches up on the technical side, Heyward's looking to connect more with his players as they grow together.
"I was learning on the run," Heyward said, "the techniques, the fundamentals, the eye discipline and learning our scheme, also trying to get to know them. The first thing I did when I got here was to introduce myself and them I’m here for them. I’m just a glorified teacher, that’s how I like to explain coaching, you’re teaching your assignments, but I look at football as a tool to how you learn life, just the different virtues of life that any sport can teach you."