2026-04-07 Jerry Mack

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Dan and Ty.

Dan Rubenstein, welcome back from your trip to the West Coast. How are you?

I'm good. I have lesser burrito quality available to me now that I'm back in the Midwest, but love being back home. Loved eating a bunch of burritos, getting some time on the California coast. Legoland, the San Diego Zoo. I saw, I thought, I guess three pandas, depending on how you technically are gonna index a red panda, which is technically not a... I don't know. I don't know how all of these things are classified, but I don't think there are many actual pandas in the lower 48 here, Ty.

Right. And it was cool to see a panda. I'm generally not a zoo person, but kids wanted to see a panda. So we went, and it was pretty impressive.

Oh, man. I love the San Diego Zoo. When I was there years ago, it was awesome. Got a lot of steps in. Saw a lot of good animals. Again, not a huge zoo person. But, you know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do when you got little ones. But otherwise, yeah, had a great time, had some pool time, shot some hoops with the boys.

See, you again. The burritos are so good.

Well, welcome back. Welcome back to you. Welcome back to all. Hopefully, if you are listening now, you had a chance to go back and listen to our off-topic episode that we dropped at the end of last week. The secret garbage bracket made its triumphant return. We've got a lot of feedback to it. We appreciate everybody chiming in. If you have yet to, go on out to garbage.solidverbal.com, of course, the most important website on the internet right now. You can go and fill out your own bracket. I have steadily been going through. We got, I can't even count how many we got at this point. People filling out their brackets, sending in their thoughts, both via the bracket itself as well as email and social media. At some point here in the very near future, we will go through those and we will read aloud the results on our airwaves, but not today, Dan.

Today we have an honored guest. Coach Jerry Mack from Kennesaw State, who's going to be stopping on by, making his first appearance on the show. You may recall when Coach Mack was hired by Kennesaw and when we did our preview episodes last summer. I was like transfixed by this situation in a way that I almost didn't expect because across the board, 130, however many teams we're up to now, I guess 138, but 136 last year. You can find a nugget with every team that you look at and say, oh, that's interesting.

But there was so much new with Kennesaw State because it was on the heels of a bad season. They were moving away from a coach who had obviously built up a reputation within the program, helped architect it. Coach Mack was going in a different direction in terms of schematics in a way that was drastically different from where they had been previously, where they were running more of an option system. He was going completely away from that.

So there was just a lot changing in a very short period of time. And there was a real question as to how is this going to look and feel? And is it going to perform? Is it going to be successful? They won the conference last year. They won the conference. They won the conference. They went from 10 losses to 10 wins within the span of a year. And it was one of the overwhelming success stories of the 2025 season. So we're thrilled to have him on and ask a bunch of questions. We had a bunch of folks at Verballers.com chime in with some of their own that we're going to work in here through the course of the next 35 minutes or so. But been a while since we had a coach on, so I'm excited. This is great.

Yeah, Kennesaw was one, a great story, two, a really good football team, and three, one of a few teams. And you look at some of the recently new teams to the FBS level. And they were new to, what, Conference USA last year. But with Missouri State and Delaware, and now we'll see what happens with what Sac State and North Dakota State. Obviously, we know the success that immediately that James Madison had with Curt Cignetti and then last couple of years with Bob Chesney after being a very recent FBS team.

It's interesting to watch a team, and I'm sure we're going to talk about this with Jerry Mack, about having the ability geographically, either having players in your backyard to recruit out of high school or to come back to the area after playing elsewhere. That it was a program because Kennesaw, again, brand new program. First season, I want to say 2015, that they won pretty quickly. And so there is this established culture of winning. Obviously, the last couple of years of the Brian Bohannon era didn't go as planned, but that they're able to immediately not just compete, but win a conference, win double-digit games, go to a bowl game. It's a terrific story.

And then what happens? Turnover, right? That's just going to happen basically everywhere with success. Either the players who didn't play want to play more and they'll end up elsewhere. Or players, if it's a place that's maybe not as huge as other places, they see their stock and their earning potential grow. And Jerry Mack has actually been very forthright about this, that it's a success for his program when one of their top edge rushers, I think, is on to Kansas State. One of their best receivers is on to Washington. Amari Odom is up to Syracuse, starting quarterback from last year. So those things reflect really well on Kennesaw. And it's a matter of now, like, how do you keep this very fluid state of the sport going at a now winning place, new winning place like Kennesaw.

Yeah, they made the jump up to FBS in 2024. Last year was Coach Mack's first season in 2025. So this will be the third year now in 2026 that they're up at the FBS level. And we're going to check in with Coach Mack, see how spring is going, see how his philosophies are taking hold at Kennesaw State.

Of course, if you have any thoughts that you would like to share in response to anything you hear here today, you can send us a shout at solidverbal@gmail.com. Hit us up across social media. All the usual hotspots you can find us. Of course, as I said earlier, Verballers.com is where you can go if you want to support what Dan and I do. That's our Patreon. You get ad-free episodes and Discord access and you can submit questions to be asked on the air, things of that nature.

Dan. Yes, I stand corrected. You're right. Second year in Conference USA. I think they were an FCS independent the year before that. That's correct. Yep.

In Jerry Mack's first season as head coach, obviously they had an enormous amount of success. And when you look at the numbers, by the way, there were games where like the Bill C's SP+ postgame win expectancy, you're 98%, 99%. When you take the events of that game, a team should win 98%, 99% of the time. They had wins in like the 16%, 18%, 19% of the time as well. So pulling out extremely losable games. Also, a skill. And so to be able to do that in your first season as a head coach at a specific place with a number of new players and obviously assistants you haven't all worked together with before. Crazy impressive. To win in a number of different ways usually is something that schools eventually get to, not are able to do right away.

All right, Dan. We are very pleased to welcome in a coach. It's been a while. Yes. We had a coach on the show. He is the leader of Kennesaw State. Jerry Mack, welcome to the show. How are you?

Man, I'm doing well. Glad you guys had me. I don't appreciate that. So what's spring look like for you right now? I know you got like a little bit of time here before you get to the conclusion of spring ball, but talk us through sort of like what's going on in your head, what's going on in the Kennesaw State world with respect to spring football and how you approach it.

Yes, just trying to build consistency. I think the biggest thing, we had a lot of success last year, and we did a lot of good things, which was really good for our program and for the community. But I think the biggest thing going into this offseason, we wanted to create a sense of urgency. And we're trying to make sure we build some stability in the program. We didn't want to be a team that was a, we don't want to be a team that's a one-year wonder, so to speak. We're trying to do a great job of developing really the bottom of the roster all the way to the top because we feel like everybody can get better for the most part. So we started this journey about a month ago, and we're kind of in this last week trying to wrap up a lot of things.

So when you look back at last year, which we can get into, obviously a huge success for Kennesaw State. What is it that you are focused on this spring? I know obviously trying to develop all facets of the roster, but in terms of tendencies, in terms of things that maybe you saw on tape looking back, what are the areas of focus for Kennesaw?

Yeah, when we look back to the things that we can get better, some of the things that were glaring at us. Defensively, there's some things we have to continue to improve our tackling. So that has been a challenge for us last year, especially down the stretch. I didn't think we did a great job of that. Offensively, we have to figure out a way to get a little bit more consistent from a standpoint of sustaining drives a little bit better. I thought we were, we rely too heavily on the big play at times. And then obviously in special teams, we just have to improve overall in all phases of special teams. And a lot of that is personnel driven. A lot of that is about getting the right guys in the building and making sure we put the right guys on those certain units. You know, as the season goes on, I think the thing that jumps out at you the most is it's just a long season. It was a long season for us last year. Playing in the bowl game, playing in the conference championship game.

So a couple of more extra games that we had probably anticipated going into the season in some retrospect. So, we have to do a good job of making sure that we keep guys healthy. So, we've been evaluating a lot of that kind of stuff, talking to these guys, trying to teach them more about how to take care of their bodies from the standpoint of sleep and the things they put in their body as well.

So you mentioned the word stability early on, which is kind of a wild word in this world that we're in in college football. You lose your starting quarterback, obviously, turnover at running back, turnover at receiver, turnover all over the place. And you can only control so much, right? That, like, you know, in this world, everybody's roster is turning over. So, what can you control to keep a program stable if your roster isn't? And it's not just true of a Kennesaw State. It's any team on any level and whatever. This is just sort of a reality.

I think it starts with just our player personnel department. So they have to do a great job of constantly evaluating players and making sure that they're building lists at every single position. Just because you never know. I can't tell you that the guys are going to walk out the door in December, January, or whenever the portal opens again. So I need to make sure that, you know, as we kind of get closer to this thing, we got a list of what I call like suspects, guys that you think are going to enter the portal, guys you think may have a chance, you may have a chance in your market to try to attract. And then just keep a really good thorough evaluation on every player from high school to junior college to guys that we were recruiting at other places when we were here. And then they end up going somewhere else, we have to do a great job of evaluating.

I think the second thing is, from a standpoint of your high school players that you bring into your building, those guys are really the culture setters for your program because those are the guys that you may have a chance to keep in your building for two, three, if you're lucky, four years. But those guys, you have to do a really good job, in my opinion, of making sure they're setting the standard and the culture. So when you bring the new guys, whether they be high school, junior college, or transfers in, there's a certain standard that we know we're going to go by, and they have kind of done a great job of setting the culture with those younger guys.

I think those are the things that you know you can control. I can't control, like you said, if a guy decides that he wants to leave and wants to get an opportunity somewhere else, but I can control how I'm developing the people that are in the building. I tell everybody, while you're here at Kennesaw, however long it is, I want to make it the best experience that you've ever had.

So what do you do? What is that experience? Again, this is something you can control. Obviously, you mentioned the players setting the standard. What can you do within a program? And even if players are the ones setting that culture, what can you do as the grown-up in the room to help? Like what you're doing essentially right now, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is you want to establish a reputation for Kennesaw State, right? That if a player wants to transfer from Cal, if a player wants to transfer from Illinois, if a player wants to transfer from UAB, wherever, you want that reputation to stretch across the country. So as the grown-up, what is it that you're doing that can hopefully make it an attractive place?

Yeah, I think first things are first. When you're in the building and when you have a chance to touch our coaches, we're doing a great job, I feel like, of making sure we're developing meaningful relationships with the guys. Because your biggest selling point is your players that you have now. Those are the guys that's going to go out and talk good or bad about your program, good or bad about the university, all those different things. So that's important to me that they have a great experience. So we can use those guys as potential selling points when we do try and attract that guy from Cal or wherever it may be.

I think the second thing is exposure. You know, working with our people on campus, telling our story, telling where Kennesaw State is, where it came from, like, you know, the history of the program. As many things as we can get out on social media to talk about. We have a great institution. We have something great to sell here. I think that's important because all these kids, they're on TikTok, they're on X, they're on all these little different social media platforms. And we're just generating more eyeballs to the television, more eyeballs to the screens. As many times as we can do that, as much as we can do that in an exciting and captivating way, is really important to me so we can make sure we attract the right people.

It's interesting you mentioned the history of the program because in terms of the sport, in terms of college football, Kennesaw has basically no history. Right? It's exciting that the Owls sort of came out of nowhere in the mid-2010s and won basically immediately. Do you look at that as a positive in that you're not going to have, you know, old timers from the '70s, you know, calling you up and saying, well, this is how we did it, you know, way back when. Or do you look at it as a negative that you don't have this big thing to sell in the way that other schools might. So I assume you lean positive, but what is it like heading up such a new program?

It's a really good happy balance, in my opinion. Because, like you said, there's not guys that have, they don't have 20-year levels here. That's not the reality. But there are guys that laid the foundation of the program as an FCS program. They did a good job of winning and going to playoffs. We're trying to continue to cultivate those relationships to make sure those guys come back and they feel welcome and wanted in the building, which they should. They did a great job of establishing the standard.

But I will tell you this too, like the guys now, kids now, a lot of times, these guys, they're not like I was when I grew up. I watched college football. I watched the old greats that played the game. There was a lot of tradition at certain schools and things like that. Nowadays, you know, the game is just different. The guys don't watch, they have a lot more things they can get into. So they don't know a lot of history of these schools that they're choosing. If you ask them who was a player there 10 years ago or five years ago, they probably couldn't tell you, especially if they're not having success in the NFL. So they have no clue.

So that is kind of an advantage, to be honest with you, where a team like us or a program like us who doesn't have a lot of tradition still has a chance to attract a good athlete and still has a chance to win, even though we haven't been playing football for 50 or 80 years. Because the reality is, these guys, they only live year to year, so you were good last year, you had a good player. They know that player that played last year because they saw him on some kind of social media platform. The games looked fun, it looked exciting. I saw you guys play in October on television. I want to see what it's about more.

So, let me back up, coach. When you were hired, I believe your quote was that Kennesaw State for you was right place, right time. Right place, right time, just to put it in context for those of us out here and for people who maybe haven't been following along as closely. Kennesaw State went 2 and 10 in 2024. You were stepping in in a situation where you were taking over for a guy who had basically architected the program. And on top of that, you were flipping the system from more of like a flexbone style to more of like a veer and shoot. There's a lot going on there, Coach. And so I have questions about all three layers of that.

But what are you seeing when you are looking at this job that leads you to feel the way you did and say publicly that in spite of the 2 and 10 and all of the changes that are going to be afoot here, still this is the right time, right place for me?

Yeah. I think the first thing that jumps out to everybody, every coach, every player that comes here is the location. When you look at where we're located and we're so close to the Atlanta airport, the Atlanta metropolitan area, we're in the state of Georgia, we're in the big time high school football area that's kind of the Mecca here in Cobb County. There was just access to players. That's the first thing I think when you look at any job. Where are the players? Where am I going to go get the players? Like, do I have to go five hours, six hours? Can they fly in here? Or do they have to come in and drive far away? Like that was the number one thing that I saw. There's access to players. You can't do anything if you don't have the access to the people.

I think the second thing, kind of go back to what we talked about before, there was no tradition. There was not a whole, well, I can say there was not a whole lot of tradition on some of the things that they had established here. So, you're talking about a program that was only 10 years old. I got a chance to come in here and establish some of my own traditions and some of the things that I want to build a program and what I want it to look like.

And I think the third thing was the people. You got a chance to visit with the administration, whether it's the athletic director and our president. And there was a common theme that this university and this program wanted to grow and they wanted to do things a little bit different, and they were willing to put some of the resources behind where their mouth was. And that was one of the things that excited me the most. A young program in a great location that wanted to be good.

How do you broach that subject in an interview of rebooting the scheme and going in a completely different direction? Because I was trying to think when we were putting questions together for this, there aren't a whole lot of examples that come to mind of a team that went from more of like an option-based thing to something diametrically opposed and were successful like that. You went from 10 losses to 10 wins. What is that transition like? How do you sell administration? How do you sell existing players on doing something so radical? And then I guess the $64 million question is: how do you actually have success doing it so quickly?

Yeah. Well, the first thing is, you know, my background was always an offensive background. And every place I had been in the past, we walked in the building and we changed the offensive scheme and we had a chance to do something really, really cool and unique. The last stop obviously in college before Jacksonville was University of Tennessee. When we walked into University of Tennessee in 2021, you know, it was a more of a pro style scheme. We changed to this style of offense and then we end up, I think, seventh in the country in offense. The next year in 2022, we were the number one offense in the country.

So from a selling point standpoint, that was really, I think, what they saw. They saw, wow, everywhere this guy's been, whether it was Tennessee in my past or whether it was way back when I was an FCS coach as a coordinator at Arkansas-Pine Bluff or North Carolina Central, wherever those places were, you know, when I walked in the door, we did a great job of putting the right scheme in front of the players.

The second part to that is finding the right people. Once again, there were some residual players already on the roster that were really talented. They just weren't being utilized the right way. So I had to do a good job of coming in here, looking at the games, looking at certain schemes and certain things where those guys had touched the ball the previous year and just trying to figure out will they be a fit on what I was trying to do. Some of those guys were a fit. Many of those guys were not a fit. So we had to kind of move on from those guys.

And then the last thing is trying to get a quarterback. We brought a couple of quarterbacks in here that I felt like they could be really good in the style of system that we were playing in. It all starts from up front as well. So we had to bring about, I think we brought 12 to 14 new offensive linemen in the building. My offensive line coach, he was on the phone constantly working his butt off to get the right bodies in the building. But so all those different things played a big role, just assessing the roster that was already here. Who are we going to have a chance to retain? And then, schematically, understanding what this system does and how it can flip the switch extremely fast. Because I had seen it before happen. So I wanted to take a similar blueprint.

I think it's easy for guys like Dan and I to look at a team that is going through a schematic shift like that and say, I mean, you know, you got to go get a better quarterback or better linemen, better receivers, whatever in the transfer portal. But I'd imagine there's a lot more nuance on your side of it. What are the specific player profiles that you target when you're looking across the portal, maybe for your system or just in general for the culture that you're trying to build?

Yeah, I think just overall, culturally wise, I wanted guys with a chip on their shoulder, with an edge, who really wanted to be successful and love football. That was really some of the things that I really wanted as we look not only just offense, but also defense, too. Just wanted those guys that wanted to come in the door with a chip on their shoulder because either they felt undervalued at the previous place and they weren't getting as much playing time as they wanted to. And those guys were the people that had a lot of success for us.

The second thing, just looking at quarterback. I wanted a quarterback who's going to be a good decision maker. A guy that's going to fast process and good decision maker. The arm talent and the arm strength, obviously, that plays a part in it. But if he's going to throw interceptions and turn the ball over, I can't win with that. So, like, that guy had to be a guy that, you know, was going to make a good decision with the ball in his hands.

The running back position, that was going to be important. We have won with all different styles of backs. You can either, all different types, small, short, big, whatever the case may be. But I do think that has to be a low maintenance position for me. That has to be a guy you're not chasing down trying to figure out, is he going to be a counter, is he going to do the right thing? Some positions are a little bit more high maintenance than others. Running back is not one of those positions that need to be that. That needs to be a plug and play. Let's go.

Offensive line, you know, that is always going to be a work in progress. We're going to always try to target the length that we want and the size that we want up front. But I do think at this level, it's always going to be hit or miss. Some years you're going to be able to hit on more than you can than you had the previous year. So the number one thing we always keep in our mind, guys that are going to be really tough and gritty and hard-nosed. Right? 6'1", 6'3", 6'4". It doesn't really matter all the time if them guys are tough, hard-nosed, and gritty. Because that's still what going to be what the program is built off of.

And then the last, you know, at the receiver position, you know, once again, it's very similar to the running back. You can win with all different styles. But we needed different body types in the room. We needed big guys, we need the small guys. We need guys that could run really fast and explosive. But then we need those guys that can, like I say, sometimes catch BBs in the dark. They just got great hands, but they may not be as fast. So those guys were really important to try to find, just a different skill set in their room constantly.

You mentioned younger players or players that are back setting expectations. And also with your offensive background, last year was new for everybody, right? New for the transfers, new for the coaching staff together, new for you as the head coach at Kennesaw. This year, you're starting over once again in terms of a starting quarterback, new starting receivers. Is it, I wouldn't say easier, but is it a different kind of challenge when it's once again new for everybody in terms of expectations, new in terms of learning scheme? Or would you, I mean, obviously, you'd rather have returning experience, but is there a certain advantage to everybody sort of being on the same page where there's so much new in the room? And now you have the advantage as a coaching staff: okay, we've established this thing, these are our expectations.

It's very exciting because this time last year, when we walked in the building in December, we didn't have really anything to sell. We were a whole new staff. They were trying to trust the vision more than anything else. So they were just taking a chance on us just like we were taking a chance on them.

This year, the whole cycle was a little bit different because now you walk in there and they come on a visit. You got a championship trophy sitting to the left of you. You got these statistics. You got these guys that had had success, all these all-conference selections. So there's just a different feel about the type of athlete that we went out and attracted this year.

And so like now when they walk in the building, although it's new and everything's new to everybody, like you said, the coaches have already been in the system. So now the players are hungry. That's what I see. Right now, from an offensive standpoint, I see a bunch of guys that they're trying, they want to be better than the last year's group. So they're taking that as a challenge. Like the last year group, I think we averaged 34 points in the conference, in conference games. Right. So, like, they want to be better. They're constantly in the building. They're constantly trying to figure out, like, that guy was first team in my conference. I can do exactly what he did and better. So, like, there's a hunger and there's an edge with these guys right now that they see the writing on the wall that they can do some things even better than the last group did.

On the other side of things, what is it like? I'm sure there are some responsibilities you and your staff have as psychologists, right? That if you're bringing in transfers who either didn't play like they wanted to at a previous stop, or were not getting the playing time they perhaps thought they should be getting at a previous stop. You have to build these guys up to a certain level and say, you're at a winning place. You're here for a reason. We believe in you. Now go play. Like, what is your responsibility from a sort of a mental standpoint?

Everything is constantly like a psychological warfare, as I like to say sometimes, with all players, transfers included. Yeah. You know, these guys all come from different backgrounds, different places, and you don't exactly know what their situation was. You're going to get bits and pieces of it. Because you're going to talk to a coach that was at the previous school, you're going to talk to the kid, you're going to talk to, you know, other people that's around him, and somewhere in the middle is the truth, right. Somewhere in the middle is kind of what happened.

So, when we get them in the building, we're trying to take them for face value and figure out what exactly happened at those places. A lot of times, it reveals itself extremely fast. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer, but it does reveal itself why that person wasn't able to play at the last place for whatever the reason. And sometimes, culturally or schematically, it just wasn't a fit. So, like, we're able to try to figure that out too.

But we pride ourselves on trying to make sure that we're constantly talking to the guys. When you talk about from a mental health standpoint, we have a mental health specialist that we work with, a performance coach that we work with. So all those different things we're trying to figure out as they kind of come in the door. Some of those things we already know before they come in the door because we were recruiting that person out of high school or from before they chose another place and we got them back. So some of that information that we can already, you know, already have assembled.

One of the things that you'll always see, I mean, you talk about performance coaches, and you can go online and see any sort of motivational images and quotes about it. You've been around as both a player and as a head coach and as a position coach and, you know, all over the place. What were the biggest failures you had leading up to Kennesaw that helped you become immediately successful? Nobody's successful without failures. So what was the big thing that you were like, I messed this up at this spot, or even at Kennesaw, and this is how this helped?

Yeah, I think at one of my previous stops when I was the head coach in North Carolina. It was 2017, and we had just came from playing in the Celebration Bowl the year before in 2016. And I wanted a chance to do something that was really different. We were going for our fourth conference championship. And, you know, we had a reputation. A lot of people knew us in that level of football. So I was able to attract a lot of, I guess, transfers on our roster that were really dropped, at that time, they were guys from the Power Four.

And I was really excited about the roster we was building. And we finished seven and four that year, which wasn't bad, but it wasn't really the standard that I knew we could have played at. We could have been a whole lot better. And I should not have taken so many of those drop-down transfers because, from a character standpoint, they weren't the right fits. They were athletically, they were gifted. A lot of them were very gifted. But from a standpoint of did they fit our character, did they fit our culture? Were their characters where they needed to be? I did not feel, when I really sat back on that year and looked at how it transpired, if we would have just played some of the younger guys that had been in our program as opposed to going to get transfers that didn't fit culturally, I think we would have been better off.

And I always remember that, like, you know, nowadays it's a different world because you have to sign so many transfers, but we still place a high priority and a high premium on guys that culturally fit and the character that is extremely important to us. We like the talent. It doesn't take long to see if the kid can play or not. And we understand that after about two minutes of watching the film, two or three minutes of watching the film. But if they come in this building and other people that visit with them, the GM, the position coach, the coordinator, heck, our director of on-campus recruiting, the young ladies. If they don't feel good about the person as they sit down and have these dinners and watch film and show them on tours of the school, then we move on extremely fast.

Coach, you were in the NFL for a bit. We got a question from our community asking what you learned from your stint in the NFL and how you apply that as a head coach. And I would go a step further, if only because college football has changed a lot. And one of the more popular messages that Dan and I get is often comparing college football to the NFL, just with on the front office side of things, I guess, how that has changed, how players are paid now. I mean, a lot has gone on here over the last five years. What did you learn from the NFL that you are applying here in college? And just in general, how do the two stages of football coaching compare?

Yeah, I think the first thing is the way we practice. You know, in the NFL, during the months of really April and May, you have all these OTAs or these rookie minicamps and all these different things. And there's not a lot of real physical contact going on at these OTAs. There's very limited real contact.

And I think when I came back to college and the roster sizes are smaller than they were when I left before when that rule passed. Just looking at, okay, how are we going to make sure player health, player safety, getting guys to Saturdays, getting guys throughout the course of the week, keeping them upright. How are we going to change our practice? Because when I left, there was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of tackling, there's a lot of banging. You got guys beat up, their bodies beat up in spring or their bodies beat up during camp.

The OTAs are not built and structured like that. The training camps aren't structured like that anymore in the National Football League because it's all about trying to keep guys healthy. So you have to be smart about the drills that you do. You have to be smart about the player loads, sports science that goes into it. Those are different things that I took from the NFL and tried to apply to college, how we structure our practices. Some days, you know, two or three days, it may be high volume, then one or two days it may be mid, then another day may be low volume. So just figuring out all those different aspects and how they look. I think that was really the biggest thing from that standpoint.

The other side of the spectrum, when you talk about like, you know, the GMs and the player personnel and how we structure the finances and all those different things. Really, it's about where are we investing our money at? We can only have so many funds, right? So we only have so much money. So, are we putting X amount of dollars in the quarterback position? X amount of dollars in the defensive end position? Where is all that money being placed? Very similar to when you look at the NFL, like how much are we going to pay our running back room as compared to our linebacker room? Like when I was in the NFL with Jacksonville, you know, I would have conversations with our salary cap guy and just kind of figure out what his thought process is. Why did they choose to do X? What's available out there on the market? How good is this player compared to this player?

Looking at some of those things, too, from a standpoint of I turn the film on. Player X, right? Like he might have had a really good quarterback and Player X might have had 15, 20 more catches than this other player, but this other player has less drops. Right. So, like, he's just not getting targeted as much, or he's not getting as many opportunities because the quarterback is not as good, but his catch radius or catch count is a whole lot more because he doesn't drop balls.

Diving into really, it's like playing Moneyball almost. You're really diving into like the personnel, the fine details of what you're seeing to see how it's gonna fit in your system. And that's kind of what the approach that we take here. We're looking at guys no matter from what level. Who's been productive and why they have been productive is really more important.

I mean, what you're describing is golf. You're describing bogey avoidance, right? Just don't make mistakes. We want guys on the roster who are the right character, who aren't going to get in the way. We want receivers who aren't going to drop passes, quarterbacks who don't turn the football over, and I guess bigger picture, a practice structure that doesn't get guys hurt.

Yes. At the end of the day, it's really all about, can I get the best player on my roster at the healthiest he can be to those game days. And as we go through the whole process, how we work, how we train, how we identify the prospects and get them in our building, like that, all that stuff is really, really important. There's a lot of talented players out there. There really are. But every talented player is not going to be a fit for your program. Just because the most talented teams don't always win championships. It's really the teams that come together the most and that the coaches have done a good job of placing those people in positions to be successful.

In the college coaching realm, who do you model your style most after?

Oh, I don't, you know what? That's a good question. I've never really sat down and thought about it. I think I'm just me. I don't think it... I just...

That counts. That's an okay answer. No right answer.

I don't really look at a lot of guys. There are a lot of guys I know and respect. But I don't really model myself after anybody. I have a formula. I have a, I guess, a brand that I've built for the last 20, 21 years. And I just try to be the best version of me.

So you have to do that, by the way, when you're recruiting, whether it's high school, whether it's portal. You're selling yourself. You are constantly, to parents, to coaches, to the kids themselves, you are selling the Jerry Mack story. What do you highlight? How do you go about being both authentic? But you have to be like savvy, right? You have to say, here are things about me that I want to highlight that set me apart, or at least make me seem to be more human than whoever else I'm recruiting against. So, like, I'm not going to ask you to be, like, put on, but like, how do you sell yourself in those situations?

Well, I'm self-made. I wasn't in this game. I didn't come in this game with a dad that had coached 20 years in the NFL or nobody ever gave me anything. I was always a guy that just really worked from the ground up and earned my way, earned my keep. I've worked at every single level of college football for the most part. I've worked in the National Football League. I've been a part of explosive offenses. I've been a head coach five years, and in those five years, I've won four championships. So I think like that kind of, to me, kind of speaks for itself when I sit down with these young people and I talk about, I can talk to you about the National Football League. I can talk to you about high-level college. I can talk to you about how we're going to build our program, the culture of the program, how we're going to develop the young player, how we're going to put him in the best situation to be successful on and off the field. Which is really important. It's really about developing the entire student athlete in this day and age.

What do you do? Do you ever talk about you as a person in terms of like, I like Japanese movies. I like barbecue. I like this TV. Like, what? I do, I feel like that would be something. Maybe that's just me being naive that I would highlight about myself because so many coaches are working 20 hours a day, and you get a lot of those same conversations. It's football, football, football. Do you find success in highlighting other things about yourself?

I do. You know, when we're having these dinners and you're sitting down talking to parents, talking to players, all these kind of different things. So I got three kids, right? I got two in college, or one in college now, one has graduated. I got another one that's 14. So he's like living the teenage life, right? So, you know, the parents, a lot of parents have been through that kind of stuff. You know, I love sitting down watching all the streaming networks, Hulu, Netflix, all those different things. I love documentaries. I just got through watching the Pat Summitt documentary the other night. So, like, all those different things we have in these conversations, you know, at the table.

I'm a big YouTube watcher, so I love the scroll. My wife hates it. But I love scrolling YouTube, going down rabbit holes, watching nonsense.

What are your rabbit holes? What are your rabbit holes?

Man, that could be anything. It could be anything from learning about finances, listening to all the investment strategies to Entertainment Tonight, just watching, watching who the new, who got the Oscars, who got the Grammys, all that kind of good stuff. And listening to interviews. So we go down rabbit holes all the time.

Okay, love to hear. When you, so, one of the things, and you talked about this, and this is sort of related, when you were at Tennessee. You're in a place with money, with prestige, obviously, a good amount of success historically. Kennesaw's a different place. Besides from, I guess, just a budget to pay players, what is the difference between walking into your facility and your weight room and walking into one at a place like Tennessee? Is the difference as stark as people may think? Or is it sort of like at the end of the day, these are the things we have in common?

Yeah, I think from a standpoint of the magnitude of the buildings, the sizes of things, those type of schools are massive, right? Like they have all the bells and whistles, whether it's a barbershop or whether it's a recording studio or podcast studio for the players to go through. All those bells and whistle things are real at those kinds of places. We don't have all those types of bells and whistles.

From a standpoint of the other thing that's really different is the personnel piece. Like there's one person to do one job everywhere in that building at those kind of programs. At our program, there's one guy that he may do three jobs. So the personnel and the support staffs look different. They just have way more people that are employed to do certain things, where we have less people.

But when you unveil the curtain and you really get into like how do you win and why do you win and why do you lose, all those different things as far as the X's and O's, the scheme, the developing players, the relationships that you build with guys, like all that's exactly the same. And like the football piece, like, it doesn't go anywhere. What really matters at the end of the day is the football and how you can pour into and develop the player and what kind of connection you can have with the player. That's not going to ever change in the history of football.

You know, every place is different as far as, you know, the Taj Mahals that you can build. That's why it's so important to me that we make sure that when they walk into our building, it feels like Disney World from a standpoint of how they're going to get treated. Everybody loves going to Disney World, everybody's engaged. You know, you just don't like when you look at your pocketbook sometimes, you see how much money you just spent. But the experience is awesome, right.

So what, so if you could choose one bell and one whistle, right, that when you're talking to your bosses or you're talking to boosters. Is it just a personnel and headcount thing? What is something that you're like, okay, we don't have the type of coin that a Tennessee or a Notre Dame or Oregon or whatever has? But if we could do this, that would be like a really great step for the program.

Yeah, I think it's some of everything. It's not just one. Like, obviously, we want to continue to build facilities the right way. We want to continue to get some of those bells and whistles because the goal is to try to make sure that you can keep your players around you in the building as much as humanly possible. We want to make it feel like a resort. You know, when you go to a resort, you're at that place, you don't have to leave. You know, you got the restaurants that you want to go to, you can work out, you can do any extracurricular activities that you want. All that stuff is kind of a one-stop shop.

The more that we can talk to our people here at Kennesaw about making our building and making our facilities more of a one-stop shop. They don't have to go off site for recovery. They don't have to go anywhere. If they want to, like you said, if they want to go bowling or anything like that, they don't have to leave. They don't have to leave campus. They don't have to leave our building. So, therefore, it just gives you a chance to get the guy in the building more. More walkthroughs, more film study. It's kind of a, you know, it's kind of a trick. You get them in the building to do everything along with, you keep pointing to them from the football standpoint and the relationship building too.

His name is Coach Jerry Mack. You can find all his fine work, as we say, here at Kennesaw State. Coach, I'm going to get you out of here on this. This is one of the other questions that came through via our community. Your favorite spot for lemon pepper wings in Atlanta. If you have a spot for lemon pepper wings in Atlanta.

Oh, you're putting me on the spot right here.

Or just, let's put it this way: it doesn't need to be for lemon pepper wings, but food spot in Atlanta if you are making a recommendation to friends or family.

Food spot. Well, I'm big on Chops. I think it's a couple of different locations here. It's a really nice steakhouse. I think it's one in Buckhead that me and the wife like to go to. But I'm gonna go back to your wing question. There's one right over here by campus. It's really, people don't know this, but it's Miller's Ale House. They have some of the best, just pure wings as far as a size standpoint that I've been around.

I'm looking at it right now. And I think I just have to agree. It looks great. Not a sponsor of this show, but man, if you're right there and you want to run into Kennesaw State football royalty, maybe that's the move.

All right. Well, his name is again, Jerry Mack. Continued success. Congratulations on a great season in 2025. We got to bring you back on again sometime soon, maybe at some point during the year to hear how things are going. But we enjoyed this tremendously, and thanks for helping us make it happen.

Man, no doubt. My pleasure, guys. Appreciate you.

All right, there you go. Coach Jerry Mack, root on the Kennesaw State Owls this year. Had a great campaign in year one last year. We'll see what they can do as a follow-up campaign here in 2026, now coming in as the Conference USA defending champions. Great to catch up with him. It's good to get that perspective.

He answered the question almost exactly like I would have answered the question about how to sell yourself as a human, right? Because they're all going to say, you know, we develop this player and this is the kind of things we do in the program. But like at a certain point, you want to be able to relate to other people as a human, and to be like, well, I have kids and I go down YouTube rabbit holes. What else do you need to know? I mean, that's about as human as you're going to get in 2026, right?

Exactly right. So, no, it was great having him on. The perspective of, you know, I'm always very curious about these guys. With, you know, if you're a successful program in Conference USA, in the Mountain West, wherever, you're just going to lose huge players to the portal. And the ability to provide stability at a place when the roster turns over as much as it is everywhere is difficult, it seems, from the outside, right? That you're just like, now you can say, this is how we do things here. This is our way of operating, these are our schedule priorities. And this is our culture. This is how we focus. This is how we communicate with players and parents and assistants, whatever. That it seems like a full-time job in and of itself, even aside from, you know, working on winning football games.

Oh, yeah. Fascinating stuff. And you know, the other thing I noticed, and you don't hear talked about that much, obviously a Group of Five program's best players. We hear a lot about them transferring up, right, as you said, to Washington or Syracuse or wherever to get into the Power Four. But one thing that stands out, if you look at the chunk of names coming in this year for Kennesaw, certainly last year, is a lot of guys at what you would perceive to be quote unquote bigger programs, power programs coming down to play for the Owls, to get playing time, perhaps, among other things. And you just wonder if the success continues, if we will continue seeing a similar trend of guys maybe at bigger places who also, they are bought into what Jerry Mack is building and want to contribute to the success of future teams.

So, a great interview with him. It was great to get his perspective. Obviously, year one went really, really well for the Kennesaw State Owls. So we'll bring them back soon. That was fun. Can't wait.

And as an addendum to the introduction of this show. The secret garbage bracket, if you have not yet listened, if you did not listen to the one from, what was it, 2017? March 17th, 2017, yes. 2017. If you have listened to either one of those. And I don't think I did a good enough job on this year's episode with a preamble: the different items that we discussed and made a bracket of on the secret garbage bracket. We obviously accept them all as fine and necessary on some level. But also, might this item be secret garbage?

I don't want to be, I don't, I think I was perhaps unfairly negative to certain things without saying like, yes, obviously cars are fine. We all need cars on a certain level to do things in our life, and some of those experiences are better than others. But also, cars can be secret garbage. That's what I think I need to do a better job of doing.

And in addition, Ty, I think on this week's bonus episode, only found at what, Verballers.com? Verballers.com. Patreon.com/solidverbal. If you're a thorough type. We're going to do a secret treasure bracket. So that will only be available for our Patreon subscribers. But yes, so secret treasure. So something that's like not discussed a lot, not a prominent part of conversations or everyday life in 2026, but is secretly an absolute treasure.

Slip-on shoes. Slip-on shoes.

Oh, is that on one of yours?

It's going to be.

Okay. I have so many. So this is our attempt to even out our own little corner of the universe. Yes?

I think that's fair. You still probably owe the Verballer Hood an apology for the haircut industrial conversation.

I apologize for nothing. That makes, I spent all weekend thinking about that. I think it makes less sense to me now than it did when you introduced it. And I know we've had some people chime in and say that they agree with it, to each his own. I don't get it. It literally makes no sense to me what you are describing. So I'm glad you feel good about it. That one, to me, I'm still, I don't. I just don't. I don't get you. I don't. I love you. I don't get you.

Yeah, no, I just think we've reached the limit of your comprehension. And that's possible, too.

RAM is in short supply these days, as you know.

RAM is in very short supply.

Yeah, I could use an upgrade, not going to lie.

All right. That's good. That's fine. I appreciate everybody's feedback on the secret garbage bracket. And people are saying, many people are saying that that should just be the show. Just ditch the football. Just talk about random stuff that we're grumpy about.

Yeah. It would just start to get very specific. We would just be like, all right, next item. My friend's wife. Secretly garbage? Right? They would become immensely personal.

No. But yes, I always have fun with that. And so we look forward to bringing that back in 2035. 2035.

All right. Yeah. Anything else? We got anything else in this episode before we go?

No, that's it, man.

Okay. Well, on that note, we appreciate, again, Coach Jerry Mack being so generous with his time. We will definitely hope to bring him back at some point here in the very near future. Good luck to him and the Kennesaw State Owls in 2026. If you made it this far through, please hit follow or subscribe, whatever app you're on, whatever you watch us on, however it is you consume the content. We'd appreciate if you stick around. Two episodes all throughout the offseason each week. Once we get a little bit closer, when the rubber starts meeting the road, that's when we'll flip it over to three a week and start previewing teams. But still got a few months before that happens.

In the meantime, Verballers.com is where you can go if you want to support, directly support what Dan and I do. For that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubenstein, for myself, Ty Hildenbrandt, we will catch you all on Thursday. In the meantime, stay solid. Peace.

All right, Ty, quick post-credits game show. Working title, Portal Kings. Player enters his name into the portal and then ends up somewhere else. I'm going to give you five names. I'm putting 30 seconds on the board, and here we go.

Spencer Rattler went from Oklahoma to South Carolina. Correct.

Hendon Hooker. Oh, was it Virginia Tech to Tennessee?

Jahmyr Gibbs. Went from Georgia Tech to Alabama.

Wan'Dale Robinson. Oh. I know he ended up at Kentucky. I don't remember where he was before that. Nebraska.

Final one. Nic Scourton. Nic Scourton went from Purdue to Texas A&M. 29.98 seconds, but you got four out of five. That's not bad, right?

Pretty good. Wan'Dale was at Nebraska. I forgot about that. Nebraska.