Will Healy Interview

Alright, I think all the levels are set. Showtime! Now?

Right now! This is The Drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. When the college football schedule was restructured, I remember talking to our next guest, Will Healy, who's the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers, and he said there's only one ground rule he wanted to set. The weeks that we play North Carolina and Duke, no comparing of him and the coaches on the other side, which just so happened to be Hall of Famer Mac Brown and one of the most respected coaches in the business, David Cutcliffe at Duke. This Saturday, your 49ers get set for Mac Brown and the Heals, which right now is ranked in the top 15 after their route of the Syracuse Orange last weekend. Every coach is different. We've talked about that before, Coach Healy, and there are several ways you could skin a cat when playing football. So, what about Mac Brown do you admire the most?

Well, a lot of things. One is how good he's been to me. I think the other thing about it is Mac Brown at 70 years old is still enjoying this like I am at 35.

I don't think there's an age to just really being about the right things and developing true relationships with your players and enjoying celebrating their success. He's been through so many different programs, so many different experiences. I heard on his press conference this week he was talking about expectations, and he said a lot of the guys in this building haven't been through expectations like I have whenever he was at Texas or when he was at North Carolina the first time.

Now they're getting some of those expectations back. It's just so many different things that he's been through in his tenure and learned from situations probably that he didn't handle the way he wanted to and handled them differently the next time and then ones that worked out. So, I don't think you can ever continue to pick his brain enough because he's been so successful. He does it the right way, and every time I talk to him, I'm like, dang, why didn't I think of that? And he's always like, well, I've been doing this a couple more years than you have.

You'll learn through your experiences, too. You're a former quarterback, Coach Healy, and you're somebody who has specialization on the offensive side of the ball, so when you look at Sam Howe on tape preparing for Saturday, what distinguishes him from other quarterbacks you've seen? Well, he can extend plays. He throws the ball well on the run. He's a really good athlete, and so now he's a dual threat with a very quick release, a strong arm, extreme accuracy, and then he's just got this confidence about him, even as a true freshman last year, that any time the ball was in his hands, good things were going to happen. I've loved watching his film as a fan. I have not loved watching his film knowing we've got to go compete against him, but I've got a ton of respect for him. From what Coach Brown says about him, he's even a better person than he is a player. That's how you change a program.

That's how you change a culture. You get a guy who's taking the snaps that is your leader, that is your face in the program, that, oh, by the way, is probably a first-round draft pick whenever he comes out, and I think he's been a huge reason why they've been able to create so much buzz and have so much success in such a short time. Oh, and a happy birthday to Sam Howe today, the North Carolina quarterback.

Young man celebrating a birthday. We're chatting here with Will Healy, head coach of the Charlotte 49ers. He had an opportunity against Appalachian State, and that's been a really fun series to watch the last two years, but there's a specific decision I want to talk about here. Fourth and long, five and a half minutes left to go in the game. You try to go for it on fourth down, you don't get it rather than kicking the field goal. It was 28-20 at that point.

I'm looking at it at first, and my initial reaction is I think you kick it so that way you give your defense a chance, and hopefully you can keep the timeouts, but regardless of what I think, just tell me it's raining, you're factoring in a lot of different details, and you're trying to make a really quick, sound decision. How does that happen? Who do you consult? And then when something ultimately doesn't go your way, how much second guessing actually happens? It's a great question, and my wife was wondering about the number of people that question that, including yours. She was like, I thought y'all were friends, and I said friends can still question each other, so I welcome the criticism. You know, I actually had that, we had a long staff meeting on Sunday about that particular situation, and hey guys, does anybody want to talk about this? What do you think? Does anybody disagree?

And if so, why? And it creates really good conversation. I think for me in that situation, here's what I thought. I didn't come here to tie.

I didn't come here to be passes. I think any time the ball touches number three, our quarterback's hands, good things are going to happen. I have a lot of confidence in us being able to find ways to be able to create some matchups here that we can convert a fourth and 10, and I'd be a heck of a lot more upset with myself if we kicked a field goal and they ran the clock out and we got beat 28 to 23, you know, because I didn't give myself a chance to go tie it up at that point in time than I would. Hey, if we don't get it here, at least we can still get a stop and get the ball back and go down and score and go for two and tie it. So, I mean, I think it's a question of, you know, I thought we'd already kicked enough, you know, probably too many field goals in the red zone. We kind of scored more touchdowns in those situations, and, you know, we were on the 20-yard line. We had great field positions, and I felt really confident in our offense to be able to go make the play and then our defense to be able to get a stop, and neither one of them happened.

So it is 100% a decision that should be questioned. I would do the same thing again if I was in the exact same situations just based on the confidence I have in our quarterback and the aggression of saying we're going to do whatever we need to do, whether it's going forward on fourth down, you know, from midfield or going forward on fourth down from the red zone. Let's be the aggressor here, and if we're going to go down, we're going to go down swinging. How can I get back in Mrs. Healy's good graces?

How can I make that happen? Listen, she's got to have thick skin like I do, and I'm like, listen, if this is the only thing you're worried about and this is something that's going to upset you, then, you know, then we got some bigger issues down the road that we probably need to worry about. When Mike gets tired of me and he's ready to can me, then you're really going to, you know, I don't need you to be a, you know, a Twitter hero. I just need you to be supportive when I get home, and that's what she is. No, she's great.

Yeah, it happens even in the media field, too. My girlfriend, she sees like what people on Instagram and on Twitter say. This guy doesn't know anything. He looks like a Jack White. He looks like, I mean, you fill in the blank.

I've heard it, and you've probably heard a lot worse. In fact, I'm counting on it. Well, Healey's with us here.

Here's what I want to close with. See, Joe Brady, I thought he called a hell of a game for the Panthers on Sunday. I understand you've had a chance to golf with Joe Brady. What impressed you if you watched the Panthers on Sunday about the way he called his NFL debut and really just picking his brain? I will admit, I very rarely get to watch NFL football during the season. You know, I was in here evaluating the film from us and App and figuring out where we need to get better and where we, you know, didn't make some plays where we could have won the game. So I didn't get a chance to watch any of it. Obviously, it's all the one play on fourth and one that I know a lot of people were questioning with why he didn't give the ball to Christian McCaffrey and some of those things.

I saw that, but that was pretty much all I got to see, and that was a replay. Just being around Joe Brady and watching him in college, I think it's incredible what he does from a personnel perspective. Finds different ways to put guys in different spots, different mismatches. You know, when you really look at the shell of things, I think he makes it really easy for those front five and in a lot of ways really easy for his quarterback. What he does is he changes his formation so much, he uses so many motions and shifts that it makes it very difficult on the defense.

So that's what you're trying to do. Let your offense play fast and your defense have to react. Extremely smart, a really good person, you know, in it for the right reasons. You can tell he'll be a head coach in no time, you know, but I think I really enjoyed spending time around him picking his brain. I mean, he's probably forgotten more football than I'll ever know, but just a lot of fun being around him. And, you know, I've turned in in the last year and a half to a big Panthers fan and pulling for those guys. I know Coach Will will do an amazing job. And, you know, I think people were excited about the level of play that they saw, especially from an offensive perspective on Sunday. So they're just going to keep getting better. And I think they'll win more games than people expect.

And this place will be back in the playoffs in no time. Who's the better golfer, you or Joe Brady? Joe probably thinks I don't coach enough because I was beating him in golf, but Joe's pretty good too.

So he's definitely not too shabby at it. He'd call himself an athlete, but I think I did get him on that day. Follow him on Twitter, Will Healy, that is. Coach underscore Heals. It's good to hear from you. Good luck against the Tar Heals this weekend. I know we'll catch up sometime soon and please give your best to Miss Healy for us. I'll do it, man. Thanks for having me. Have a great day.

You got it. That's Will Healy, the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers. And an easy guy to root for. Very honest and always, every time we talk to him, Robert, he's always telling us something that we didn't know before and telling us how things work behind the scenes. And appreciate him being so open talking about a shortcoming, something he tried, it just didn't work. And even that his wife apparently saw me tweet something where I might have questioned the decision to not kick a field goal there. That's why I usually tell my girlfriends just to mute you. Just mute him. And that way you don't have to worry about anything he says. You're just worried about Josh. All right. I am not looking forward to what's about to happen. B. Dot is here and he's going to give me a ton of flack, a ton of grief that I deserve next.