'Everybody works hard. So how do I make up that difference? I've got to find something that's different.'
It makes perfect sense that Joe Moglia would run his Coastal Carolina program different than most. You don't spend a decade and a half working your way up the coaching ranks, eventually rising to Dartmouth's defensive coordinator, then abandon that career to work in Wall Street, rise to the level of CEO at TD Ameritrade, and then return to coaching in an unpaid voluntary position working 80 hours a week so you can run your program like everybody else.
Moglia is different because he has to be different. Just how different, though? David Hale of ESPN.com pulled back the curtain on how Moglia runs the Chanticleers' program.
- Efficiency is placed at an absolute premium. Film review is capped at four plays per position group. "If a decision can't be explained clearly in a single sentence," writes Hale, "Moglia is apt to dismiss it entirely."
- Moglia has data proving that the benefits of a workday diminish at a certain point. As such, Moglia gives his staff more downtime than any in the country.
- Coastal Carolina tackled just 65 minutes over the entire spring. Fifteen minutes of tackling in the first spring scrimmage, 20 minutes in the second and half of the spring game.
- As such, Coastal ran 400 more snaps this spring than last, and saw practices lost due to injury drop by 250 percent.
- Moglia gives more practice reps to his second team than the starters. Back-ups, Moglia believes, need reps, while starters need refinement.
- Once a week, Moglia cuts practice short to talk about real life issues ranging from financial advice to mental health issues.
The methods may be questionable, but the results are not. Coastal Carolina is 20-8 in two seasons under Moglia with two Big South Conference championships, and a trip to the FCS quarterfinals and a No. 7 final ranking in 2013. Coastal Carolina has won 18 of its last 20 games against current FCS schools.
"I'm not going to be better because I work hard," Moglia said. "Everybody works hard. So how do I make up that difference? I've got to find something that's different."
