Today’s Coach and Coordinator podcast guest is Phil Longo, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the University of Mississippi. Longo has been at Ole Miss for one season in that position. Before arriving there, he was the offensive coordinator at Sam Houston State for three seasons, helping the Bearkats to the FCS playoffs all three seasons and overseeing the No. 1 total offense in the nation (547.3 yards per game) in 2016. He began his coaching career at Parsippany Hills (New Jersey) High School (1996-1999), then had stops at William Paterson University (2000-2001), La Salle as head coach (2004-2005), Minnesota-Duluth (2006-2007), Southern Illinois (2008-2009), Youngstown State (2010) and Slippery Rock (2012-2013). In the podcast, Longo and host Keith Grabowski talk about the Rebels’ up-tempo offense, communication within that offense and more.

Show notes

1:00 How Longo feels about his first year at Ole Miss

2:05 What’s different about coaching in the SEC compared to everywhere else

4:15 Asking Longo about a specific offensive formation he frequently uses

5:45 What Longo likes to do on the first play of a possession

6:30 Why Longo’s offense isn’t running as many plays at Ole Miss as it did at Sam Houston State

7:55 How to communicate within the “Don’t Blink Offense”

10:30 How to work around officials’ placing of the ball in the up-tempo offense

12:00 Advice for training players within the up-tempo

14:50 How the communication process works from coaches to players

16:15 How to be as efficient as possible in practice

19:00 Teaching tools the coaching staff uses