The sun was just beginning to rise. Matt Daniels was wiping the sleep from his eyes while strapping on his pads and practice uniform. In burst Jim Knowles, with a smile on his face. Then, in the middle of Duke’s locker room, he danced. It was equally odd and ingenious, somehow the perfect way to reach his players and start the morning on the right groove.
“Hey wake it up guys, c’mon now, beautiful day just to dance and move out there on the practice field!” Knowles blurted out, moving his hips in the process.
Daniels looked around the room, making sure he wasn’t still dreaming and his teammates were also witnessing the scene. They all laughed. This was the same man who got into regular screaming matches with his players. The same man who paid so much attention to detail that he could point out whether an offensive lineman’s right hand was positioned on his butt cheek.
There’s hardly anything like the experience of being coached by Knowles, the former Prudential Financial staffer who threw out a high-paying salary for a $3,000 check to coach at his alma mater, Cornell. It’s been 37 years since that move. The Philadelphia native is now the nation’s highest-paid assistant, set to embark on his first year as Penn State’s defensive coordinator.
“You reach a point in your career where you’re given opportunities based on past performance. And, like I said, Penn State for me, growing up in inner city Philly was the epitome of college football,” Knowles said on Wednesday. “When I was a kid, I was never talented enough to make it to Penn State as a player, but given the opportunity to do it now as a coach, it’s really where I want to be to continue my career and bring any expertise that I can to the organization.”
Knowles describes his childhood self as a guttersnipe. His family was so poor, Knowles said, that he couldn’t have dreamed of making the four-trip to State College for a football game. Growing up, his football coaches were cops, firemen and maintenance men. They taught him the art of tough love and discipline, two staples of Knowles’ coaching ideology.
It was under those coaches that Knowles found a way to “accept criticism and respond with toughness.” He’s since mirrored the image of his childhood influences and expected an attitude similar to the one he possessed in his youth by the players he’s coached. Describing Knowles and his coaching style is a simple task for those who’ve been through his gauntlet.
“Maniac, maniac,” Daniels, special teams coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, told StateCollege.com. “There were times where me and Knowles would butt heads. We challenged each other, and I’m challenging him on the defense. He’s challenging me to do more, be more vocal, do a better job of communicating, do a better job of disguising.”
“He’d get in your face and yell, and you’d yell back at him and he don’t care. He’s a Philly dude so he’s ready to get in anybody’s face and scream at him,” Chicago Bears linebacker Amen Ogbonbemiga, who was coached by Knowles at Oklahoma State, told StateCollege.com. “But it’s tough love and you appreciate it if you’re a real competitor, because he’s really trying to get the best out of you.”
Knowles was obsessed with the details. He’s “always one step ahead of offensive coordinators,” Ogbonbemiga said, and has a deep trust in his calculated game plan. When he gives instruction, especially in a game, he expects his players to listen. When players don’t believe he knows what he’s doing, history has shown going against his call typically doesn’t bode well.
Daniels was a senior with the Blue Devils in 2011 when he made this mistake. Georgia Tech was a yard from the goal line with six seconds remaining in the first half. Duke called a timeout, and Knowles insisted that the Yellowjackets would run a toss sweep. Daniels, a future coordinator in his own right, blew off Knowles’ instruction. He looked for a quarterback-dive option.
The players returned to the field, and Georgia Tech indeed ran a toss sweep, beating Daniels and breezing into the end zone with ease. That score ultimately decided the game in a one-score affair.
“Knowles let me have it,” Daniels said. “‘I fucking told you it was a fucking toss sweep, you don’t listen, you think you know everything.’ I was sick, sick because all I had to do was just listen to my coach. The preparation, the game plan and everything that went into it, he was always on top of it, all the small little details.”
It all comes down to trust. And at this point in Knowles’ career, fresh off a season in which his Ohio State defense was nation’s best and ultimately led the path to a national title, there’s no denying that his system is accurate. Knowles has blossomed into the ultimate defensive coordinator, there to find the answers that players cannot find on their own.
“When times get tough, they know that you’re gonna fix things and you’re gonna put them in the right positions,” Knowles said. “You’re not just gonna say, ‘Well, you got to win. You got beat.’ I don’t do that. I want to make sure that they know that I’m going to give them every chance to succeed.”
At his core, Knowles is incredibly intelligent, smart enough to get into Cornell and earn a job on Wall Street directly after graduating. He left New York City behind to chase his love for the game of football, and build on his gifted understanding of the way defense is played.
“The Cornell background definitely shows as he continues to go through the game plan and go through the week and go through the season,” Ogbonbemiga said. “He’s just so smart, and the little details he can provide to every position about blitz technique, timing, footwork, disguises. He’s not a DC that just calls the plays. He really knows the intricacies and the details of defense.”
Knowles is a players’ coach. He helped connect Daniels with peers in the financial circuit and prepare for interviews, which eventually assisted in landing his star safety internships with J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Wall Street and everything that came with it is still very much in Knowles’ blood. It’s an essential part of his identity and the way he views football.
“He used to talk about the chaos of Wall Street. How much money was involved, the pressure,” Daniels said. “It’s funny, because when you’re dealing with other people’s money, he talked about the similarities and the pressure, the pressure of the job in itself. Having to make these quick decisions, just like you do on a football field, and a lot of the time it’s more reactionary. He used to make a ton of comparisons to football and life on Wall Street.”
There’s a certain complexity that comes with being coached by Knowles. This is a man who was raised in poverty and blessed with wealth early in his career, but gave it all away to chase his destiny — and that was coaching football. He’s now a national champion and arguably the most respected defensive coordinator in college football.
Ogbongbemiga refers to Knowles as a “mad scientist.” He’s always in his office, always watching film, always trying to gain an edge. And, most of the time, he has one. There are only so many words that can come to mind when describing a coach as distinct as Knowles is. For Daniels, there’s just one way to illustrate the presence of his former defensive coordinator.
“He’s got a brilliant mind,” Daniels said.
