Before coaching at Western Michigan, Eric Evans transformed UAlbany football

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Eric Evans’ college playing career lasted two weeks.

As a freshman wide receiver from St. Charles, Illinois, Evans joined DePauw University’s football team in 2000. But, in the middle of training camp, Evans was knocked out in practice.

He doesn’t remember anything from that day. He remembered going to bed the night before and waking up in a hospital bed surrounded by family and head coach Nick Mourouzis.

It was his fifth concussion, one that placed him into a conscious coma for eight hours. The events of that day were relayed to Evans by Mourouzis, who told him his playing career was over.

But Mourouzis knew that Evans wanted to be a coach and with a limited staff, the head coach felt something could be pried out of disaster. Mourouzis told Evans that he could coach until he graduated college. He went on to be a student assistant with the team, earning the Kenneth Brooks Holland Memorial Award in 2003.

“What probably was the worst day of my life became the best day of my life because it turned me into being a coach,” Evans said.

After graduating from DePauw, Evans accepted a part-time job as the tight ends coach with Dayton University. In 2008, Evans took a job with UAlbany as a wide receivers coach — the beginning of a successful five-year stint. Now, as the tight ends coach for Western Michigan, Evans returns to the area that molded him on Saturday.

Evans saw an opening in the Great Danes’ coaching staff on Football Scoop, a website about football coaching across all levels. He took a flight into Albany in February 2008 and then-head coach Bob Ford picked him up at the airport. Two coaching connections assisted him in getting his first full-time coaching job. Each member of Northwestern’s coaching staff called Ford, praising Evans’ work.

Evans met the rest of the coaching staff in an interview that he remembered felt conversational. Former offensive line coach Mike Morita said that Evans showed “extremely strong” knowledge of the passing game.

When Evans’ arrived, UAlbany ran much of its offense from a two-back or double tight end formation — the wishbone offense — priding itself on a ground-and-pound approach. Ford wanted to transition out of the scheme and adopt a spread offense. Evans, who helped implement that very change at Dayton, was the perfect candidate.

As a recruiter, it was clear that Evans was going to excel. Ford noticed in the interview that Evans was an intelligent talker good at expressing his wants. Traditionally, UAlbany didn’t recruit in Ohio, but with Evans, Ford felt comfortable. The next morning, Evans was hired as the tight ends coach.

In May 2008, John Allen, UAlbany’s wide receiver’s coach, left for Penn State. His departure left a vacancy heading into the summer. Evans had spent the spring working with the tight ends but Ford had no issue moving pieces around.

“I’ve always felt that if you can coach or you can teach, you can coach or teach anything. You just have to learn the subject matter,” Ford said. “It always comes down to desire.”

Evans attacked recruiting by honing in on high school coaches to bring him players that best fit the “Purple Family.” Once Evans gained trust from the coaches, he reached out to the players and their families, pitching a relationship that would extend past their collegiate careers. He told recruits that it wasn’t a four-year relationship, rather the beginning of a 40-year one.

Evans volunteered to organize an academic plan at UAlbany for the team. The plan involved scheduling study halls, checking classes and completing progress reports. Former receiver Ryan Kirchner said Evans arrived to players’ classes five minutes early to save a seat in the front row. Then, he’d sit in the back for at least 10 minutes, making sure they stayed.

“It’s a passion to be great and excellent in everything that he does,” Kirchner said. “He sets this incredibly, incredibly high bar because he knows that’s what it takes to win.”

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Morita said Evans put together pass game reports at the end of the season and after spring camp. It included play-by-play breakdown for each route combination UAlbany ran, equipped with a full page writeup of the attempts, completions, yards, interceptions and sacks.

Once, Evans marked down seven or eight sacks for one play that the Great Danes ran during a 7-on-7 drill. “We don’t get it off in time so I count it as a sack,” Evans said to Morita in a meeting. No linemen participated in the drill.

The Great Danes won three Northeast Conference titles, the Gridiron Classic and went to the first round of the Football Championship Series during Evans’ time there. Leaving for the University of Alabama-Birmingham in 2013 was hard but it served as a chance to move up to the Football Bowl Subdivision level and work under Garrick McGee, a friend of his from Northwestern.

Evans had done all he could, and it was the next step to pursuing the dream he’d had since he was a kid.

“You’re not sure how long you’re going to be there, and I fell in love with it,” Evans said. “I was never actively looking to leave because we were having so much success.”