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John Pease hadn't been giving much thought to returning to coaching until Saturday night, when Kyle Whittingham asked him if he had any interest — and if so, how about being Utah's new defensive coordinator?
Still, he didn't have to think it over too long.
"I'd rather die here on the field than watching Law & Order in a big easy chair," cracked Pease, 71, who previously came out of retirement to coach Utah's defensive line in 2009-10.
The longtime NFL assistant said he wouldn't have returned to coach for just anybody. Whittingham reminds him of Washington legend Don James, under whom Pease coached defensive linemen from 1978 to 1982 before embarking on a 23-year pro coaching career.
"I think the world of Kyle," Pease said. "I really do. I think he tries to do it the right way. He cares about the kids, and he makes them go to class."
Pease said Utah's defense will not drastically change under his watch. They'll run the defense Whittingham has always run, with a few alterations — for a couple hypothetical examples, how they handle three offensive players bunched up, or whether they play in a certain situation with "head up" or "inside shade" alignment — that will come only after Whittingham's stated approval.
Asked whether Whittingham lives up to his reputation as a micromanager, Pease said emphatically, "Hell yes. He's the head coach. I was with Jim Mora and I was with Tom Coughlin — hey, that's their job. ... Do you think the CEO of General Motors is going to go in and say, 'OK, you guys just do what you want to do?'"
Following in the footsteps of Howard Schnellenberger, who coached until 77, and Kansas State's Bill Snyder, who is still active at 75, Pease said that he's in very good health, and his wife, Chris, teases him that maybe during his 48 years in coaching, he's learned something.
Pease played at the U. and was one of the stars on the team that won the 1964 Liberty Bowl. He also coached as a graduate assistant in 1968-69 (after being drafted and serving as a military policeman for the Army in Puerto Rico, coaching eight-man football) and as linebackers coach in 1978.
Asked what he told his players at Monday's first positional meeting, he joked that he's longed to be the first coach to tell his team, "Well, we're just going to show up, and we're not going to be very tough."
Instead he told them that in his honest estimation, Utah can be "the terrors of the Pac-12" with slight improvement, given their performances last season in close games, against proven opponents.
He can't join the recruiting effort until he passes an NCAA test (which he has previously passed twice) and may not have any impact on this year's class, given that Signing Day is Wednesday. Pease is very connected in Southern California, having formerly coached at Long Beach State and Fullerton Community College, and earning a spot in the California Community College Hall of Fame.
— Matthew Piper
Twitter: @matthew_piper