Wade Phillips is a name that nearly all coaches will recognize, as his career spans over five decades and he has served as a head coach with multiple NFL teams.
Over those fifty years, the 76-year old Phillips has surely seen about everything there is to see in the coaching profession but this weekend he will experience a first as a head coach with the San Antonio Brahmas.
On Sunday, Phillips will serve as the head coach in a league championship game for the very first time.
The Brahmas will face the Birmingham Stallions at 5pm EST at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis for the UFL Championship game.
Phillips, whose coaching career started back in 1969 as a graduate assistant at Houston, put together an impressive career record of 82-64 as a head coach over 12 seasons in the NFL with stops with the Broncos, Cowboys and Bills and an interim stint with the Texans.
A veteran defensive coordinator in the NFL, and regarded as one of the top defensive minds the game has ever had, Phillips has coached in big-time games as an assistant before.
In 2015 he was the Broncos defensive coordinator when they won the Super Bow. As the Cowboys head coach from 2007-10 he also helped the franchise snap a 12-year playoff drought.
He last coached in the NFL as the Rams defensive coordinator from 2017-19, and landed last season as the head coach of the XFL's Houston Roughnecks, leading them to a 7-3 mark.
When the XFL and USFL merged, he took over as the head coach of the Brahmas, and has led them to a 7-3 mark as they head to the league championship game.
Lots of coaches will be interested to see how Wade's first championship appearance will shake out in the UFL's inaugural season. To become champs, they'll have to knock off Skip Holtz and the Birmingham Stallions, who enter the game 9-1 and champions of USFL the past two seasons.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.