MIAMI — Normally, during a quiet moment in the days leading up to a big game, Miami defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman will find time to call Indiana counterpart Bryant Haines to catch up or pick his mind about a potential concept he may roll out against an opponent.
The pair have known each other since the 2019 season serving on the same staff at James Madison, and Haines was the best man in Hetherman’s wedding to his wife, Julie.
This week, however, it’s been radio silence between the longtime friends. Their last communication was a simple text after each’s respective College Football Playoff semifinal win with a one-word message: Congratulations.
“It’s been a relationship that obviously we’ve kept together. We constantly talk,” Hetherman said. “We both have daughters now, so the conversations have shifted a little bit. Now it’s, you know, how is it going with Ada or with Gracie? What goes on there?”
There may come a time in the months ahead when the parenting advice and the discussions over the best way to defend mobile quarterbacks on third down can resume. For now, each coordinator understands why that is set aside as their teams meet Monday night with a chance to go, as they each term it, 1–0 in order to win what would be a historic national title for either the Hoosiers or the Hurricanes.
Such stakes are far greater than the last time the two last faced off. In the 2018 regular-season finale, Hetherman was Maine’s defensive coordinator under current UMass coach Joe Harasymiak, while Haines served as linebackers coach for the Curt Cignetti–coached Elon.
Haines had the superior defense that chilly day in Orono, Maine, with the Phoenix holding the Black Bears to only 234 yards of offense and forcing four turnovers. However, Hetherman was victorious with a final defensive stand forcing a turnover over on downs in a 27–26 win for the CAA regular-season football title.
The victory and a subsequent FCS playoff run also proved instrumental in helping Hetherman move up the coaching ladder with Cignetti hiring him to his new James Madison staff as defensive coordinator shortly before Christmas that year. He left after three seasons in Harrisonburg, Va., to join Rutgers as an assistant under Harasymiak, prompting Haines to ascend into the role of play-caller on defense at James Madison just as they moved up to the FBS ranks in 2022.
“I love [Hetherman], absolutely. I didn’t want him to leave. We had a great relationship,” Cignetti said. “He’s a great football coach and fortunately I had Bryant Haines [to replace him], who I think is the best in the country. But they’re different guys.”
Different, but compatible on and off the field from staff meetings, family gatherings and even the occasional round of golf with others on the staff.
Now the pair are not only squaring off in the final game of the college football season for a chance at a national championship, but they each have a top-five scoring defense this season and are two of the finalists for the Broyles Award given to the nation’s top assistant.
“His ego wasn’t so big that he didn’t want to take in other ideas. He didn’t slam the playbook in our face like we’ve got a genius and we’re just going to do it like this,” Haines said. “We all had ideas of ways of doing things and he was open to all of it. To me, what that showed us is he’s a good boss, he’s a good coordinator. He can take in ideas and be a great collaborator.”
James Madison went 21–3 with Hetherman and Haines on staff under Cignetti and nearly won an FCS national title in their first season together. Though each has evolved and adapted to the sport since moving upward in their careers, both acknowledged that the bones of what they do at Miami and Indiana is not that different.
“I learned a lot of football from [Haines]. He’s unbelievably smart. He does a really good job and works really hard,” Hetherman said. “I do think we’re different. When you turn the film on, you’re going to see a very similar concept, similar schemes, but I think the way we attack different offenses is different.”
Indeed, if there’s anything that could describe the dichotomy between the pair of defensive coordinators it’s in the way they go about things during practice and in meeting rooms.
Hetherman sports a thick beard, a booming voice and is well known for his ferocity in getting players excited at the opportunity to fly around and attack opponents between the lines. It paid off for the Hurricanes as they went from allowing 25.3 points per game and being the reason why the program was left out of the CFP in 2024 to just 14 points per game on this magical run to the title game in their own home stadium.
“His mentality of violence and his approach to swarm and all that stuff, has been preached to us since January last year,” says Canes defensive lineman Akheem Mesidor. “Even when he tries to joke around, he’s so intense. He doesn’t make dad jokes, he pushes you around, he asks you, ‘How can you be violent today?’ I like it. He’s different.”
As is Haines, who keeps his facial hair short, is a little more approachable and far more jolly off the field in assembling a group of Hoosiers who are allowing just 11.1 points per game and have forced the third-most turnovers in the country.
“Coach Hetherman’s intensity isn’t like Coach Haines, who is more laid-back and kind of matched my personality a bit more so felt real comfortable playing for him,” says Hoosiers defensive end Mikail Kamara, who was recruited to James Madison by Hetherman and followed Haines to Bloomington, Ind. “It was also great because [Haines] challenged me to play multiple positions. He challenged me to cover in space. He challenged me to understand more about the defense, to understand the offensive schemes. The change Coach Haines has made my game grow in ways I can’t really explain.”
“The way our defense has grown, not only from what we want but how we run it, the presentations we give to other teams, the way he calls games, is unbelievable. He’s a wizard when it comes to defense,” Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher said. “Coach Haines has grown so much because he’s such an effective teacher.”
Fisher thinks that kind of preparation has paid off in spades with the veteran group of former Dukes and a host of other overlooked or underrecruited defenders with the Hoosiers, noting they seem to know what’s coming before the offense even snaps the ball more than half the time.
Though Miami has much more underlying talent to work with—37 four- or five-star recruits dot the overall roster—Hetherman has also been able to evolve what he does on defense to suit the group he’s working with. That led to defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. earning All-American honors and a host of other Canes having career seasons to help the school back to the national stage 23 years after their last one.
“He does a great job mixing it up, keeping it off balance,” says Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who also was on staff at James Madison and called plays in practice against Hetherman. “I would say, maybe the one thing that showed up a little bit more this year, was his two variations that he has [of zone coverage]. I’m sure he had it whenever we were together, but maybe I wasn’t in tune with it as I am now. The other thing that’s very consistent with him is he’s always going to get his players to play hard as heck and it all starts up front with those D-linemen. He’s got a good group up front this year, so that gives them a lot of flexibility to do some different things on the back end.”
Perhaps one of the underrated keys to Hetherman’s evolution as a defensive coordinator has been his unique background.
He was a former quarterback at tiny Fitchburg State, and rose up the coaching ranks from Division III, spending several early years calling offensive plays at small colleges in the Northeast.
“I like recruiting quarterbacks more than other positions because they have a different viewpoint of the game. I think the same in coaching. A coach who played quarterback probably has a great understanding of space and route development, coverages, relations of safeties, setting protections,” Haines said. “His playing days, if we’re calling it that [smiles], probably allows him to be a little more holistic as a coach.”
If there’s anything that Haines, and even Cignetti, is still open to chatting about with Hetherman before kickoff on Monday night though, it might be the Miami defensive coordinator’s passing ability when he has the ball in his hands. Both coaches have seen it up close over the years together and didn’t hold back with some not-so-subtle shots about both his accuracy and his athleticism.
Hetherman, though, can once again have the last laugh with his old boss and his best friend if he goes 1–0 from the opposite sideline.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The CFP Defensive Showdown Has Familiarity for Coordinators Finally on Biggest Stage.
