stallions’ dc corEy chamblin leads defense to ‘six quarters of nothing.’
JUNE 24, 2024 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
By Steve Irvine
Just a few days after being an integral part of championship game history as the Birmingham Stallions defensive coordinator, Corey Chamblin was back on the football field.
He was running drills and teaching fundamentals. He was pushing players to be their best and correcting them when they weren’t. He was getting the players ready for the upcoming season.
However, the setting was a bit different for what has become his out-of-season coaching job.
“I have two kids – they are 13 and 11,” said Chamblin, a Birmingham native, who lives in Chandler, Arizona when not coaching professional football. “We’ve been coaching tackle football with these guys for three to four years. This is what I do in the offseason.”
He coaches alongside former NFL receiver James Jones, who was part of a Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packer team in the 2010-11 season. Jones, who spent 12 seasons in the NFL, has sons the same as Chamblin. They have coached together since their sons were in flag football with Jones serving as the head coach.
Chamblin said the experience has made him a better professional football coach.
“If I can make things simple for the kids, and they can understand it, then I will be a better teacher when I go back,” Chamblin said. “A better teacher because I can simplify it. If the kids can understand it, then (the pro players) can understand it. The same things that we’re teaching there, in terms of fundamentals, is the same thing I teach every day to our guys. What happens is the more you get scheme heavy, guys start making mistakes and missing tackles because they are getting away from the fundamentals, the thing that made them a good football player.”
Chamblin was a former standout at Ensley High and Tennessee Tech University. As a player, he was part of six NFL franchises and played a season for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe. Coaching wasn’t on his mind in his younger days but that changed while he was playing professionally.
“It wasn’t until I was in college that I said, ‘Hey, I may come back and maybe be a guy who is a high school coach,’” Chamblin said. “It was in me, but I didn’t really think that was what I would do. By the time I got to the pros and was a career backup, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not a good player, I’m gonna be a coach.’ My eyes opened and I saw coaching was my career. I love the game, love teaching the game at any level.”
His career, like most in the coaching business, has been a mixture of success and struggles. He was part of three Grey Cup championship teams with three different franchises in the Canadian Football team, including in 2013 when he was the head coach for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was selected at the CFL Coach of the Year following that season. He also was fired from Saskatchewan after starting the following season with nine consecutive losses and went 4-14 in his lone season as the head coach in Toronto.
Chamblin coached the secondary for the Birmingham Stallions under Skip Holtz during the USFL championship season in 2022 and coached under Hines Ward for the San Antonio Brahmas in the XFL in 2023.
This season was certainly one of the most unique seasons of his coaching career. His move to defensive coordinator basically began in the eighth week of the season, even though the move didn’t become official until the final week of the regular season. Chamblin took over coordinator duties when John Chavis, who has been in that role for the Stallions since the USFL returned in 2022, was forced to the sideline. The Stallions were shorthanded on the defensive staff for two weeks, before Anthony Blevins joined the staff for the final regular season game and both playoff victories.
“I just hit the ground running with it,” Chamblin said. “It was transition. I’m going to tell you right now, it was a huge transition.”
The adjustment over the first two weeks was difficult. The Stallions gave up a season-high 28 points in a win over Houston and suffered their lone loss of the season the following week against the San Antonio Brahmas.
Things settled in during the final week of the season, when the Stallions allowed just three second half points in a 20-19 win over the Michigan Panthers.
“I just made my own routine, that’s the biggest thing,” Chamblin said. “I was trying to do someone else’s routine. We tried to find what (our own) routine was. We found it and everything worked out pretty good.”
He also changed the approach during the week heading into the regular season finale and kept it up through the playoffs.
“We simplified it to the simplest form,” Chamblin said. “Even in practice the last couple of weeks, just like I’m doing with these youth kids, it was let’s go back (to the basics). We did tackling drills, we did takeaways and we did everything we’d do in training camp from a fundamental standpoint. Those guys went back to playing fundamentals and doing what they’re great at. They had fun with it. It showed up with six quarters of nothing.”
The “six quarters of nothing” was a legendary way to finish a third consecutive championship season. The Stallions defense allowed 18 points in the first 26 minutes and one second of the USFL Division playoff game against the Michigan Panthers. The Stallions defense then pitched a shutout for the final 93 minutes and 59 seconds of the season. Over that time, they allowed a mere 332 yards in offense and created six turnovers, including a pick-6 return by Daniel Isom that changed the complexion of the win over the Panthers.
Chamblin called it the “latest and greatest” of his career.
“When this opportunity came up, even though I didn’t like the way it came with Coach Chavis,” said Chamblin. “But to be with Skip and the guys and the offense that he runs, you know it’s going to be complimentary football. To have this opportunity. I’ve had some accolades up north of the border. But to have 90 something minutes, six quarters with nothing is special. I’ve had a couple of shutouts up in Canada – not in a championship game. But to do it on national TV and having a U.S. victory. From the football part, it was more than just perfection. It was like, ‘Hey I can do it.’ That’s why I made that shift to come back to this level.”
Now, at least until the Stallions gather together to prepare for the 2025 season, Chamblin will work toward winning a championship at another level.