Ferrell's Passion and Work Ethic Earned Him a Spot on New Coaching Staff
5/28/2019 8:59:00 AM | Football, General
Ten years after finishing his Kent State playing career, Colin Ferrell found himself in a position he never thought he would be in. The 2007 alum was named interim head coach of the Flashes following a change in leadership.
How he got to that point was unlikely and featured some luck along the way. For example, less than a decade prior to being named interim head coach, Ferrell had not even considered coaching after his brief NFL career ended.
"As a player, you see the work and the amount of hours the coaches put in," said Ferrell. "They are away from their families. As a player you do not really see yourself wanting to do that. Then you get cut from the league and you are like, now what? I had a corporate job at Lowe's making decent money. I hated it. I got an opportunity to coach at The Hun School in New Jersey. That is where it all started. I did not want to go to work anymore, I just wanted to stay and coach football."
No one who knows Ferrell questions his ability to coach. One look at him and he looks like he was born to do it. At 6-foot, 300-pounds, he commands any room he is in.
Playing alongside players such as three-time Pro Bowler Josh Cribbs and Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman was instrumental in how Ferrell competed as a player and how he competes as a coach today.
"What I took from those guys every day in practice is just how they compete," said Ferrell. "They competed their tail off and that translated to the rest of the team."
Watching how those Kent State legends competed across the line of scrimmage is not the only thing Ferrell applies from his playing career in his coaching. A passion for football runs through him. He uses his playing experiences to fuel his passion for coaching, and he does everything in his power to instill that same passion in his players.
"It is one thing to be in love with football. It is another thing to be passionate about it," said Ferrell. "Passion lives in you, drives you and keeps you going. I try to get my guys to understand that you can fall out of love with something. But if you are passionate about something, it is in you. If you are passionate about something, you will work to get better at it every day. That is kind of my coaching style. I tell my guys all the time that work works. It starts with the passion that you have about it every day."
This passion, and a string of good luck, led Ferrell to a quality control job at Kent State before landing a graduate assistant position with the Flashes a year later. Two years and one graduate degree later, a full-time position as defensive line coach opened at Kent State.
To go from a GA straight to a full-time position coach at the Division-I level is rare. But Ferrell is rare. He gave Head Coach Paul Haynes no choice but to hire him. He was the guy for the job.
In his first season, two Kent State defensive linemen earned All-MAC honors, including a first team selection for Terence Waugh. Jon Cunningham claimed All-MAC honors in Ferrell's second season leading the defensive line.
After years of working his way up the Kent State coaching tree, Ferrell was named interim head coach for the Flashes. He finished the 2017 season and was left wondering what he was going to do next.
"I was concerned and anxious," said Ferrell. "Every process is different. It is all about relationships. The transition was not easy. It was nerve racking. You go to work and do not know where you are going to be in a week. All you can do is get up, accomplish everything you can and focus on the task at hand without looking at the mountain. It has been a blessing though. Coach Lewis and the staff have embraced me. You would never know that I was the guy on the previous staff."
When Head Coach Sean Lewis met Ferrell, he knew he had to have him on his staff.
"Coach Ferrell was one of the first people that I met at Kent State," said Lewis. "He did a fabulous job with our recruiting when we only had 42 days to put everything together. He was really the guy on the ground to get a lot of that stuff rolling while I was still coming in from Syracuse. I saw his tireless work ethic and the way he went about doing things. He is a selfless individual, and he does things the right way. He has been an integral part of what we are building going forward."
This tireless work ethic and passion for the game was something Coach Lewis saw in Ferrell's recruiting and felt he needed on staff. Ferrell backed that up with his success in the 2019 recruiting class. He currently ranks fifth in the Mid-American Conference in recruiting according to 247 sports, and his eight commits are the most of anyone in the conference.
The reason for his success in recruiting is simple according to Coach Lewis.
"He does a tremendous job identifying the kids in his area and building a personal relationship with them," said Lewis. "He got them signed and here as part of our #FlashFAST family. He is in this thing for the right reasons. He is all about the kids, and he wants to help the kids grow. He lives and breathes our core values every single day. We are extremely happy to have him on our staff."
Ferrell's journey has taken him on a wild ride through football as a player at Kent State and in the NFL, to coaching in high school and now at his collegiate alma mater. At just 34 years old, Ferrell has his whole career ahead of him. But first, he wants to help take the Flashes back to where they were in 2012 and to where they have been just one time in school history.
"I think we can win MAC Championships," said Ferrell. "And it is not like a flash in the pan, get to the championship game and life is good. I think we are building a team that can compete every year for the MAC Championship."
