Ryan Garrett realized one season into his college football career that coaching would be the pathway to keep him around the game.
An all-conference wide receiver at North Henderson High School in Western, North Carolina, Garrett spent just one season at Emory & Henry College before his connections brought him to Mississippi to get into the coaching profession.
There he started as a student assistant before working his way up the ladder and crossing paths with then offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez in his final season in Oxford.
Garrett served as the quarterbacks graduate assistant and when he received word that Rodriguez was being hired he immediately fired up to potentially learn under the experienced offensive mind.
It didn’t take him long to realize why Rodriguez had experienced the success he had in his career.
“Coach Rod has a great ability, and you guys have seen it, and everybody will see it, where he’s not hands off of anything. You know, this is his program. He treats it like that and he’s going to coach every detail,” Garrett said. “And he’s made me a much, much better coach because of that.”
Attention to detail is critical working under Rodriguez and it requires a sharp eye to recognize things and get them corrected quickly before moving onto the next play. But everything has a purpose and there is a clear method to what he demands out of both his players and those coaching under him.
Garrett wanted to show Rodriguez from the start that he was the hardest worker in the building. So, when the veteran coach first arrived at Mississippi he was sent to recruit a player in South Mississippi. After that, Rodriguez was scheduled to go somewhere else, but the plane was scheduled to take the head coach.
It was Garrett that elected to drive him six hours throughout the state at 5 a.m. without hesitation.
“Because I knew that would give me some one-on-one time with him. I don't know if he – we'd never talked about that. So I don't know if he knows that that was my goal. But I think that was important early. I wanted to be the guy that he knew four people in the building, and I was one of them,” he said.
That set the tone for their relationship and anytime that Rodriguez needed something to be done, Garrett tried to make sure he was around to handle that. And when he was in the building, Garrett got there before him in order to prepare things for Rodriguez.
“It was a lot of long hours, but I loved every minute of it because, like I said, I was learning something new and also getting to work with him. And it's paid off for me, you know,” he said.
Garrett quickly realized that Rodriguez was self sufficient but as part of his duties he had to print off playlists for the quarterbacks and make packets.
That time spent at Mississippi helped to lay the foundation of a relationship that has now spanned stops at Louisiana-Monroe as an offensive graduate assistant, Jacksonville State as the wide receivers coach and now the same role at West Virginia.
“He could have gotten rid of me, but gave me an opportunity, let me work with him. And it's been great being with him ever since,” Garrett said.
For Rodriguez it came down to the effort and passion that Garrett displayed for the job.
“I loved his energy. I mean, he would do anything and everything, and so I was able to bring him with me when I went to Louisiana Monroe, and he did a great job there. Then at Jax State, he was one of the hardest-working recruiters I've ever got, puts a lot of time in, just a really, really good young coach and great with the staff. So he's got a great future,” Rodriguez said.
That experience also allowed him the chance to learn the system and the ins and outs of what Rodriguez expects on a daily basis from his coaches. And it’s become a partnership that both strongly value.
“There's always a core group or a handful group of guys that they bring with them, but not only because, you know, they know them, but because they know the value that they have to the program,” Rodriguez said.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
