PROVO, Utah (Dec. 16, 2017)—New BYU offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes met with the media during an introductory press conference on Saturday morning at LaVell Edwards Stadium. Head coach Kalani Sitake announced on Thursday the hiring of Grimes, who comes to BYU from LSU with 25 years of coaching experience.
A video link to watch Saturday’s introductory press conference is included below along with a partial transcript of the event.
Video Link: Jeff Grimes Introductory Press Conference
Kalani Sitake, BYU head coach
“It’s a great day for BYU football as we introduce our offensive coordinator, Jeff Grimes. Throughout our conversations in the past few weeks, it’s pretty evident that Coach Grimes loves his players, enjoys his role as a mentor and gets the most out of his players both on and off the field. I look forward to him making that impact here at BYU football. He brings with him 25 years of solid experience in the coaching profession, many of those years in the highest level of college football. I’m really excited about the direction of our offense. I’m looking forward to you guys getting to know him better.”
Jeff Grimes, BYU offensive coordinator
On return to BYU
“I’m excited to be here. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to come back and be at a place that I love. I’m thankful to be here. I’m thankful to President Worthen, Vice President Richardson, Tom Holmoe, and Coach Sitake for giving me this opportunity to come back and be a part of a program that I think is really special.”
On former BYU players he coached helping impact his decision
“I also want to say a thanks to a lot of my former players who really jumped out and gave me a lot of support through this process and encouraged me to make an attempt to come back. Guys like Jake Kuresa, Eddie Keele, Dallas and Lance Jr. (Reynolds), Terence Brown, Ray Feinga, Sete Aulai, just a few of the guys, and I know any time you bring up individuals you run the risk of leaving someone out, so I apologize, but those are just some of the guys that I heard from and some of the guys who supported me in this endeavor and I really want to say thank you to them because those guys are the ones that it is really all about. Having an opportunity to have an impact on lives and build relationships that last. It was a number of years ago that I first got to know those guys and obviously still have a very strong relationship with them.”
On leadership and immediate goals
“One of the things that I think is important for any guy in a position of leadership is to state what your goals are and where you are headed. I think my most immediate goals are number one, to work to put together, with Coach Sitake, the best offensive staff that BYU has ever had. I know what that means because there have been great coaches over the years, but I really believe in this time and in this place we can do that.
“My next goal is to get to know the players. I met a few of them yesterday, which was really cool. They just seemed very excited to be around and to get to know me and see where we are headed. They are chomping at the bit to get to work.
“The next thing will be to get to know some of these recruits. I know that we are just about done with recruiting but to get to know those guys and for those guys to have an opportunity to talk to me I think will be important.
“Lastly, is to go beat Notre Dame in the Citrus Bowl, which I know doesn’t have anything to do with BYU but it does have something to do with me and the commitment that I made to LSU and those players there. Obviously, I’ve had four great years there and have strong relationships with Coach Orgeron and have a great amount of respect for him and I’m grateful for the opportunity that he gave me. I want to go back and finish the job that I started there. Then I am looking forward to being here, sometime shortly after that bowl game.”
On type of offense he is going to run
“I’ve had a lot of questions about what kind of offense are you going to run. What’s the BYU offense going to look like? And I’m happy to talk about that. I’m very blessed in that in 25 years of coaching, I’ve been a lot of places. I think at times that can be both a blessing and a curse but in my case I think it’s been a real blessing. I’ve been around some great offensive minds. All the way back to when I first started coaching high school football in Texas, learning from a guy named Tom Work, who is a great high school coach and great offensive coach. We scored a ton of points and I learned to take advantage of what the defense gives you. I learned from working for guys like Dirk Koetter, Gus Malzahn and Matt Canada, this past year. Working with these coaches who are some of the best offensive minds in the entire country has given me a great breadth of experience. I think the width of experience that I’ve been able to gain over all these years gives me a broad knowledge base that will allow me to put together the best system for BYU right now. I think that the most important thing.”
On importance of building a culture and a mindset
“When you look at building an offense, the first thing you want to do is build the culture and the mindset that is right because there are a lot of different ways to move the football and score points. But with the right guys, who are willing to give all that they have, you have an opportunity to be successful in whatever style that you choose.
"When I was at Auburn, the old coach there, Pat Dye, used to come up to my office every so often, he liked me because I was the offensive line coach and he liked running the football, he’d come by and talk to me and one of the things he used to say all the time was, “You can coach them just as hard as you’re willing to love them.” I think that’s true, and I think that would describe my approach to a large extent. We’re going to be very demanding but we’re going to love the guys too. I think through being demanding and caring about them, you have the opportunity to build trust, and the end result is a guy that’s willing to go out there and play. The reason he’s willing to go out there and play is because you’ve invested in him. That combination of love and demand creates a player that has self-worth and has confidence and feels a real purpose and belonging in what he’s doing. That’s the real magic of making any system work or making any team or organization work.”
On building an offense around the skillset of the players
“I think it’s really important that you build an offense around the skillset that you have. I think that you can look at that in two ways. One, what’s it going to look like long term? What type of players do you have here that will allow you to have success for a long period of time? And then who do you have right now, this year, that will allow you to win this season? We’ll combine both of those things. It will look like a lot of the different things that I’ve done. My goal is to put together the best combination of all the systems that I’ve been a part of and build a system that’s flexible enough to fit exactly what we have here this year, but be open enough to do something a little bit different if a particular guy gets hurt, or you have a different guy in that position the following year.”
On his offensive philosophy and plans
“I believe in being creative and giving the defense a lot to look at, diversionary tactics, such as shifts and motions, and forcing the defense to defend a variety of things whether your talking about the tempo at which you snap the ball, the way you line up, the personnel groups that you have on the field. I believe in a lot of variety. I believe in balance. You can achieve balance in a lot of different ways. If you listen to Mike Leach talk about balance he talks about having balance in terms of ball distribution, whether you hand it off or whether you run it, to him, it doesn’t matter. If you listen to a team that runs it all the time, like one of the academies or Georgia Tech, they talk about balance by giving the ball in a run scheme to a lot of different guys. So there are a lot of ways to create balance. I look at the football field as a battleground. If you look at it as a battleground, then you want to force the enemy to defend a broad front and make them defend the entire width and depth of the field. So we’ll have the ability to attack the field both horizontally and vertically both through the running game and the passing game. There may be certain games where we emphasize one over the other. I’m a big believer in taking advantage of what the defense gives you. Typically, when you do that in the fourth quarter you’re going to find yourself where you want to be.”
On play calling as a new offensive coordinator
"Another question that I’m sure a lot of guys have is what about the fact that you don’t have play-calling experience? On one hand that is true, on another hand I don’t think that it is. I’ve been in a lot of games over the 25 years that I’ve coached where somebody from the press box gets to me on the headphones, and it may be in a critical fourth-and-one situation to continue a drive or score a touchdown that may win the game, “Hey Grimey, give me a call” and in that situation, whether it be for a conference championship, national championship, whatever the case may be, it is my job to give the right call and I’ve done that everywhere that I’ve been for a number of years. I feel if I can make that call in that situation, that I can make any call.”
On critical role of preparation
“Another thing I think is interesting is that a lot is made of what is called on gameday. But in most cases, the truth behind it is that most calls are made on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in your preparation. In my opinion, if you are doing the job right, then most of that happens long before you get to third-and-four from the 25-yard line. So, we will be a staff that will work really, really hard in preparation. Long before we get to those situation, we’ll know what our best calls are going to be, knowing at the same time there will be those times when you have to make a gut-instinct call, and I like that as well.”
On working together to best achieve success
“The other thing I think is important to emphasize is that this is not “me,” it’s going to be “we.” Anytime you put together a collection of coaches, I think the most valuable thing you can do is gain information from everybody that is there and use that information. I want as many guys around me as possible who have as much or more knowledge, or different types of knowledge than I have.
“Former President Lyndon Johnson once said there are no problems that we cannot solve together and there are very few that we can solve on our own. And I think that is true. Obviously, my job here is to get the offense right. But that’s not just going to be my job, that’s going to be us working collectively as a staff, It’s going to be coach Sitake and the strength coaches, and the academic people and everyone that is involved in the program, helping us move forward and score a lot of points and have a lot of fun.”