Four MEMBERs of UAB Football staff Getting NFL coaching Experience this summer
UAB Football senior analyst Danny Mitchell at work with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - May 24, 2024
Four members of the UAB football staff are getting NFL experience during the offseason.
UAB senior analyst Danny Mitchell recently returned from being one of 25 coaches that formed the inaugural class of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers National Coaching Academy. Three other staff members – safeties coach C.J. Cox and senior analysts Trevor Browder and Jalen Harris – were chosen to participate in the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship.
Cox, who will work with the Los Angeles Rams, is participating in the program for the third time. His first two opportunities came with the Kansas City Chiefs. Harris is currently working with the Green Bay Packers and Browder is getting ready for an opportunity with the Tennessee Titans.
For all of them, it’s a tremendous chance to learn.
“Any time you can do professional development, it helps the building,” Cox said. “Now, when you have the chance to go to the highest level and do professional development, that makes it that much sweeter.”
In many ways, Mitchell’s week in Tampa exceeded expectations. In some ways, though, expectations were difficult to gauge with the unexpected nature of the program’s first year. But, even without fully developed expectations, it still exceeded what he imagined it would be.
“I don't have the right adjectives to describe how great it was,” said Mitchell, who spent part of his career coaching overseas. “I've coached football in 21 different countries, this was the best experience in my football life.”
Mitchell was part of a select group of coaches from all levels and several different countries. Tampa Bay executives picked a group without NFL ties. Darcie Glazer Kassewitz, the Buccaneers owner/president, spearheaded the program.
“That to me was like the most special part about it,” Mitchell said. “I don't know how every other organization works, obviously, in the NFL, but to have the owner with you the entire week was special. Not just, ‘Hey, I'm showing up and (explaining) the program we're doing.’ She was with us with for everything, sat in in every meeting. She sat in on every, for seven straight days with us. So that to me was, showed how much that organization cared.”
The week included a variety of meetings and training. They went through media training and met with each coach on the staff. They met with the strength staff and got insight from Buccaneer legends, including Super Bowl winning coaches Tony Dungy and Bruce Arians and NFL Hall of Fame cornerback Ronde Barber. They met with business executives and NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent.
They also got hands-on experience, working with veteran running back coach Skip Peete and the team’s running backs. The first part of the week were the organized team practice activity (OTAs) and the final part was rookie mini-camp.
“I thought maybe we're just gonna sit in the back of the room and learn,” Mitchell said. “No, you’re in the front of the room. You're interacting, right there, with the players. We're on the practice field with them. We've got the practice script with them during installs. We're adding interjections just like the position coaches. The players are asking why to us. I got to work with Bucky Irving, their draft pick, and DJ Williams, the other running back they've picked up. Getting to teach them. They made you feel a great value, which is, I think, the the best thing I got out of it.”
Mitchell said he didn’t know any of the other 24 coaches participating in the program prior to arriving in Tampa. However, there were some interesting connections with coaches from Germany and Denmark. Mitchell’s first head coaching job in professional football came with the Osnabruck Tigers in Germany.
“The coach from Germany is from the hometown (nearby) the first team I was the head coach,” Mitchell said. “He was at that first game, which is the craziest part to me. He came up to me and he's like, ‘Coach, I don't know you don’t know me. We haven't met. But I watched you when you were coaching with Osnabruck.’ And the other coach from Denmark, I coached the Carlstad Crusaders, who were in Sweden. He played for the team, the very first team I coached against when I was with the Carlstad Crusaders - the Copenhagen Towers. You see how small the world of football is.”
Mitchell has a stack of nearly 200 thank you cards on his desk inside the UAB Football Operations Building. He is writing handwritten notes to each member of the organization.
He said one of the most important things he’ll take with him from the experience came from a piece of advice from Dungy.
“He said our role as coaches is to make our players better,” Mitchell said. “That's it. Whatever capacity that takes, you make them better. I think a lot of times we get caught up as coaches in, it might be my scheme or it the way I interact or it might be I come up with these genius ideas. All that matters, to really to make it fit, is you find a way to make these guys better. The only way you can do that is what they said, is to be yourself.”
While Cox is a veteran of the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship, he is looking forward to getting a fresh look with an organization to is new to him. He will join the Rams during the team’s OTAs from May 27-June 13. He will work with the Rams’ secondary, which includes former UAB standout Darious Williams.
“Any time you can learn, you got to take full advantage of it,” said Cox. “We always ask our young men to get better. Each and every day, you want to get one percent better. We’re holding them to the standard. But, as coaches, we never want to be coached. This allows me to go in somewhere and be coached by somebody else, so I can learn something and bring it back to help us get better. I call it ABL – always be learning. That’s what we have to do. I got to hold myself to that same standard.”
Cox worked with the Kansas City Chiefs secondary in 2022 and the team’s linebackers in last season. Both times he was with the team during training camp.
“Basically, what you do, is you’re essentially a fly on the wall,” Cox said. “What I did learn was just meeting organization, how efficient you need to be, so you’re not wasting any of the other staff member’s time. How to teach, how to simplify something that is so complex. I thought that was awesome. My second year, I worked with the linebackers. I wanted to be well versed in run fits. That allowed me to understand how they were teaching run fits, how they simplified it. Again, ultimately, if you can take something so complex and simplify it for your guys, they will play fast.”
Cox spent the past three seasons as the cornerback coach at Kent State and is in his first year with UAB. He has aspirations of becoming a head coach in the NFL. The relationships that he’s made and will continue to make in the fellowship will be helpful with finding a spot in the NFL at some point in his coaching career.
“I think it’s awesome, just because, obviously, it’s a minority fellowship,” Cox said. “I think the NFL is trying to address an issue that’s been a problem for a number of years. I’m not necessarily saying that we’re going in there and giving our ideas during a staff meeting. But, when we’re asked to show that we do have the mental capacity to run a defense, to be a coordinator, to be a head coach or what have you, that’s important. All we need is a chance, an opportunity. Now, what you do with that opportunity is completely up to you. This gives us a chance to show what we’re worth and that we can provide value.”
Browder, who is entering his second season as a senior offensive analyst with the quarterbacks and running backs at UAB, applied for the Bill Walsh Fellowship a few times prior to this year. His opportunity comes this year with the Tennessee Titans. He will work with the team from June 3-6 at a mandatory mini-camp and then return for the start of training camp on July 21. He will return to UAB during the middle of August.
“You find out you get the opportunity, it’s really exciting,” Browder said. “You get to learn, really, a completely different game, in terms of the field dimensions and the way the NFL operates.
I’m really excited to get up there and add value in the role they put me in, but also bring something back here from a completely different game.”
Browder’s role is on offense for the Blazers but he was a defensive quality control coach at Indiana. Prior to that, he was an offensive graduate assistant at Ball State. He said the variety of roles helped him stand out.
“Within my career, I’ve been on defense, I’ve worked with the O-line, the box on offense, the perimeter,” Browder said. “Having a familiarity with a lot of different aspects of the game really helped me in this process. They were, on offense, going to bring in a run game guy, an o-line/tight end guy and a skill guy. It was one of those things where I could kind of go either way. I think it really helped my opportunity to not step into a foreign land because I had exposure to it at previous job. I will be with the offensive skill, working with the quarterbacks and the receivers.”
Browder said building relationships and bringing value to the Titans organization are two things he’s looking forward to while in Nashville.
“Then, also, bring something back here that’s going to help me personally, but also may help our program here,” Browder said. “Whether it’s a concept, technique, whatever it may be. The old saying in coaching is you go to a coaches’ clinic and if you’re able to bring one thing back it’s worth it. I’m hoping I bring a lot more than one thing back, but I’m kind of viewing it that way.”