New Madill defensive coordinator comes from coaching family

This season the Madill Wildcats have added a long-time veteran of both Texas high school and college football circles as defensive coordinator. Jimmy Dickey, Jr. came out of retirement to lead the Wildcat defense.

Dickey’s father, Jim, Sr., was head coach at Kansas State from 1978 to 1985. He was previously a defensive coordinator or assistant coach at assistant at Houston, Oklahoms State, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Additionally, Dickey’s younger brother, Darrell, is the current offensive coordinator of Texas A&M. The younger brother also was head coach at the University of North Texas from 1998 to 2006.

Madill head coach Todd Vargas was excited to bring Dickey to Marshall County.

“Coach Dickey runs a multiple 4-3, a 4-3,” he said. “He brings a wealth of experience. He does a great job. The kids are working hard and getting a lot better.”

Vargas said the new defense will have some variation.

“There’s gonna be times we blitz,: he said. “There’s gonna be times we play base defense. It just depends on what [the other] offense gives us. And what they’re doing.”

Vargas said other teams have got the same philosophy as Madill: to win.

They’re gonna try and exploit things on our defense so Coach Dickey and the defensive staff are getting our kids prepared to play week by week all of those teams,” Vargas said.

Senior Asa Robertson said the Wildcats are growing increasingly confident in the new defensive scheme.

“The new defense is a lot of fun,” he said. “It fits us well as a team. The terminology was a little hard to grasp at first but we got it down well now.”

The man himself

To give local fans a deeper look into the man behind Madill’s new defensive scheme, The Madill Record sat down with Jimmy Dickey, Jr. We’ve shared their conversation in its entirety.

MC: So, if you could kinda tell me about your defensive philosophy and what kind of stuff you wanna instill with these guys.

JD:I base out of a 4-3 but I’m mulcible because I, the same reason that offensive plays work good against certain defenses, I feel like the same about defense. There’s certain defenses that work better against certain offenses.

So, I try to be multiples where I go from odd and even and get in a lot of different fronts and coverages.

Because there’s that fine line between who you’re confusing: them or us. So you gotta make, your job is to figure out how to be able to do a lot of stuff, but make it simple enough that your kids can still execute it and play aggressively.

So my job is to make sure that I figure out the best way to make it simple to go from one thing to another thing without having everybody having to change their techniques and fundamentals.

So, like I just use one guy makes an odd front and it takes one safety to make it an 8-man front. So I go from 6, I can go from goal line and nickel and not have to change a bunch of guys’ technique or responsibility.

MC: So, do you also use a relative, like a simple terminology, when you’re going over plays with them, or… How do you?

JD: Yeah, I’m as simple as I can be so far as calling things.

MC: Okay.

JD: And we study, we try to stop what they do and don’t draw up ghosts about what they might do. We try to stop, find out what that other team’s strength is and take that away and make them do something they don’t wanna do.

MC: Is that gonna be a lot of film study ahead of time and just as much preparation as…

JD: So you gotta almost feel, the more you study, the more you feel what that other coach is anticipating what he’s gonna do the next play, because you’ve gotta be prepared.

It’s just like a fast moving chess match. At chess, you get to stop and think for a long time before you make your move. Football, its gonna happen like right now.

So it like a really fast, you gotta make a quick judgement immediately, because they’re getting ready to run their play.

MC: What stuff did you see, you know, guess their first actual action since you’ve been here? Durant last week, what kind of stuff did you see that you liked, and what stuff did you see that maybe could have been better?

JD: I was real impressed with our kids’ intensity and attitude and their aggressiveness and they’re really, really give you all that they’ve got.

And so you can work with that, you can’t teach that. You can teach them how to line up and how to play, but getting them to play hard like that?

That’s really a plus for these kids. They’re very motivated. That all goes to Coach Vargas, he does a great job with the program and motivating kids and talking to ‘em, and he does a great job of motivating our kids.

MC: And I mean did you feel they stacked up pretty well even though Durant’s you know a 5A school? Did you really see much of a difference between them?

JD: Oh, I think we gave them all they could handle. I mean, I think they knew that because we weren’t near their size and they had to move in quarterback D-1 guy that was… You know I think they’re gonna be a whole lot better this year because of all of that.

And I think we gave them all they could, you know, handle.

MC: Was he out there a little bit? I feel like he..

JD: Yeah he started the game, the scrimmage. Their big quarterback? I don’t know who’s offering, but they said he’s been offered by D-1 schools.

MC: Oh yeah, that’s the one that moved from like, was it Washington or something like that?

JD: Yeah, and there’s two of them, I can’t remember. But one was a tight end and the other was a quarterback.

MC: So, how have they, you know, transitioned and learned your stuff so far?

JD: Its all part, well I came here in the Spring and that helped a lot, because it absorbed some of it from the Spring. And now we’re getting, I’m trying to get as much in as I can.

“But I don’t wanna put too much in because when we play first few games I want be simple enough where they can be aggressive and play. And I’m not gonna call anything that I’m not sure they can execute, because that just doesn’t ever work.

MC: What’s the challenging type plays to call for guys? Is it, you know, when you’re maybe having like uh d-lineman come back and do coverage and you’re switching like on a blitz? Or something like that?

JD: What’s the most challenging?

MC: Like when you call a play, like what are the kind of plays that are tough to call, when guys are first learning the system?

JD: Knowing how to play the different coverages and how to adjust the trips and twins and know empty and all the different formations that spread team gives you.

MC: Gotcha. So like moving around a lot, just kind of keep them in place?

JD: Knowing how to adjust to all the different formations.

MC: Okay. Now I haven’t got to watch a lot of this district. It sounds like, from what I understand, a lot of teams like to throw. What kind of stuff have you seen on film that you gotta prepare them for?

JD: The only thing… What I’ve seen over the years is football when I started out a Power I, Wishbone, then went to Split Back Veer, then went to Midline Veer, then went to Spread One Back.

“Now it’s evolving back, now because of defense are all spread out trying to cover all that stuff, now they’ve evolved back to Power and Counter and Zone and Trap, which is tight end two back.

What they’re doing is taking advantage of these defenses are already built into like a defense, and so like that’s what got the 3-4 started.

You know, people being in Spread and they were trying to get 8-man Drop, and 3-man Rush. So, now they’re going back to Power and Counter which is hard to stop that out with, so you have to figure how to get back into a more people in the box to stop the run.

MC: So, they told me that there’s only four guys returning as starters? What’s the good thing about that? Or is…

JD: Well the young guys are like eager beavers. They’re so motivated about they’re gonna get to start on Varsity field, and so they’re like a hundred miles an hour. You know, they’re not burnout as you say, like sometimes you get guys got “Senioritis” because he’s started all these years and he’s not near as, he’s just kinda lull. You know, got that kind of lull to him.

“But, these guys are very, and plus these kids all like each other a lot and that goes to Coach Vargas. He does a lot of teamwork with each other and fellowship with them and get-togethers like the trip we sent the seniors, we went with them on. You know, stuff like that.

MC: What’s your favorite part of this defense so far? Is there anything that’s getting you really excited?

JD: Just the fact that the kids all run the ball. If one guy misses it, I don’t have to worry about the pursuit not being there. If one guy missed the tackle, there’s nine other guys running the football. There’s not, this one guy didn’t make the tackle but that’s not my job. You know, that kind of deal.

MC: They’re hungry.

JD: Right.

MC: Gotcha. Almost sounds like they’re piranhas or something running that fast.

JD: Yeah, that’s a good name for them.

MC: I mean you can go ahead and use it, I’m not gonna.

JD: [laughs]

MC: Well, what uh kinda attracted you to Madill? Like what about this program, or this community, that made you think “this is where I wanna come”?

JD: I just love what Coach Vargas does with the program.

He does all of the things I believe in strongly, that I was brought up… most all the football I learned from my dad. He was a great college football coach for years, and my brother, my whole family has always coached college, And he believes in all the things I do, which I like being in that situation. Its hard to be on a staff where you’re not thinking together on how things should be. So it ends up being an alligator staff, everybody snapping at each other.

MC: I like that. It’s a little colorful, but it works.

JD: Yeah.

MC: I’m always about the good quotes. Well, I didn’t necessarily want to ask you about the family stuff, because I’m sure you get that a lot.

JD: Yeah.

MC: Maybe have over the years, uh…

JD: Oh, I don’t care.

MC: I mean…

JD: I mean, I learned most of my philosophy from my dad.

He was a great defense coordinator, North Carolina, University of Florida, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma, and all these big colleges, and Kansas State.

And my little brother’s always been the offensive guy, we’ve been defense. My little brother’s been offensive coordinator at Texas A&M now.

Got him a pretty good job there with Fisher. They play Clemson next week.