Texas A&M offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey has as deep roots in the state of Texas as anyone. He coached at Texas A&M in 1985 straight out of high school, and later had stops at UTEP, SMU, Texas State and a head coaching job at North Texas, before swinging back to College Station to become Jimbo Fisher's offensive coordinator. 

Dickey sat down with Texas Football at the Lone Star Coaching Clinic in College Station for a Q+A session. We discussed a variety of topics, including his relationship with the high school coaches of Texas, mixing his concepts with Jimbo Fisher to develop Texas A&M's offense and his read on North Texas – his old job – from the outside. 

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Texas Football: How has it helped your career having coached at so many different schools in Texas?

Darrell Dickey: “Obviously the coaching in this state are very important and the coaches do a fantastic job of teaching their schemes. I’ve come to the [Lone Star Clinic] – even as I’ve gotten older – I’m still learning as much as I'm sharing. There are a lot of the coaches that are at these clinics that I pick up things from them. 

“But then it's also a chance to visit when you're not recruiting their players and it's not that mass hectic time of year and it's time to sit and unwind and talk about their families and get to know them personally a little better. There's guys that are here that I've known my entire 37 years of coaching.”

TF: Since you've worked for a variety of different types of coaches, how do you work what those coaches want to do – Mike Norvell, Jimbo Fisher – into what you do?

DD: “It's always fun and it keeps you fresh when you're still learning. If you think you've learned it all and you're not learning, you need to be doing something else because the game changes over the years. The people change. There aren't any two coaches that are exactly alike in how they do things. There are some similarities and then there are some slight differences. 

“To be able to adapt and adjust and see a new way to do things keeps you on your toes, keeps your mind working and – what like – to be able to mold them into an offense at the place you happen to be working at the time is a lot of fine. You come to some of these and people won't say what they're doing. I've been more open to sharing what I do – maybe not all the terminology so to speak – because some of the best things I've learned are to be at a clinic like this. 

“I'll be talking about something we're doing and a coach will raise his hand and say, what if you do this? And I'll turn and realize I've never done this, but if we did it, it would be pretty good. We go back and we take a look at it and a lot of them would be pretty good ideas.”

TF: How does Jimbo Fisher divvy up responsibilities while running the offense? 

DD: “You have to understand at the end of the day, one person needs to be the decision maker and that's Coach Fisher in our case. He's the play caller, he's the head coach, he's involved in the offense. The thing about him is he has a large volume of offense stored in that mind of his and he can process a lot of information throughout the week because he's done so much and his mind is always working. 

“Every coach in our offensive room makes suggestions or adds to what we're doing, but it has to all go through him so he can funnel it through his mind to make sure it fits what he wants to do overall. It makes it so that everybody feels like they got a little part in it. He's been an offensive coordinator for a very long time and he's done just about everything. Things we throw out, he might say he doesn't like that, and you go about your business. Then maybe a day later, he'll say yeah, but he might tweak it. 

“Every bit of it is geared towards putting our players in the best situation possible and making sure everything goes through him so we don't have five different offensive thoughts, we mold it into one.”

TF: What do you think it adds bringing in TE coach James Coley, who has run an offense before?

DD: “There's no question it makes us a lot better. The game is about going out and recruiting the best players you can and then play after play and down after down, running plays that put them in a good position to be successful against the opponent we're playing. The more minds you have that have done it and been there, I fully anticipate this spring Coach Coley is going to come in and say hey, we did it this way and here's something we did that was successful and Coach Fisher is going to say, yes, let's work on it, let's practice it, and there's gonna be some things where he says, let's not do that right now, because that's how he does everybody. 

“You add another guy that's been a coordinator, been a position coach, been in the SEC, all you do is help yourself. We're thrilled he's here. He's been in two SEC championships and a national championship in the last three years, so he knows what he's doing. So far, getting to know him, he's a real personable guy, he's a team staff guy so to speak, and I think it's a great fit for us.”

TF: How much excitement is there around the program heading into Year 3? 

DD: “I think everybody is excited. We've got to continue that through spring practice, through summer workouts, through the season. We're trying to take Texas A&M to championship level. It's a culture, it's an environment you have to establish and it's a process. 

“You hear Nick Saban use the word process all the time and it is that. I was a head coach for a while and it was a process to get guys to do things everyday in their everyday lives to where they do their business at a championship level. That's the direction we're heading and we're getting there as quick as we can.”

TF: What are your thoughts on North Texas’ rise over the past few seasons? 

DD: “I think it's great. When we were there, the circumstances were different. I think that a lot of times, people make the move from I-AA to I-A and don't realize exactly how much money it takes to be competitive vs. just fielding a team. I think right now they've put themselves in a position where facility-wise, resource-wise they have a great football coach in Seth Littrell who I think the world of. I'm happy to see the Mean Green putting themselves in a position where they can compete for conference championships.

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