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Kyle Whittingham told his staff to take Friday off, so his new defensive coordinator slept in.
Then, at 5:15 a.m., John Pease rose and began his day.
Conventional wisdom holds that Pease ought to pace himself in his second return from retirement, but that thinking fails to account for just how much he has to do.
Earlier this week, Pease said, he clocked in at 4 a.m. and arrived home around 8 p.m. It'd be a shorter shift Friday, but he wanted to share a few thoughts with new linebackers coach Justin Ena about stopping the inside dive play. Pease told Ena on his way out just to kick around what they'd discussed — no pressure. After Ena left, Pease leaned forward and said in an excited whisper, like he was revealing a state secret, "SUCH a smart guy."
He does not appear wearied. Nor does his conversation dwell on past glories, as it reasonably might. On his desk, only a teal plastic binder with a Jacksonville Jaguars logo hints at a half-century of prior experience.
He displays few mementos at home, either. He has two shadow boxes with watches and rings from two Rose Bowls and three USFL Championship games. He has a football given to him by the New Orleans Saints for coaching in his 600th game. He has a plaque he earned as the Most Inspirational Player in Utah's 1964 Liberty Bowl victory, and another from his induction the California Community College Hall of Fame.
That's about it, he said.
At 71, he's now the third-oldest coordinator at the FBS level, behind only Central Michigan's Morris Watts and Iowa State's Wally Burnham. Four days before Pease turned 32, while he was a linebackers coach at Long Beach State, predecessor Kalani Sitake was born.
But his memories do not sustain him. He's hungry, he said, for more.
"This is an addicting game. You walk into a stadium and get booed or cheered by 45,000 people — that's kind of fun. That's a good time."
Retiring and returning, Part II • Pease owned a residence in Salt Lake after he left the NFL's Saints in 2005, and he began to occasionally visit with Whittingham, whom Pease remembered as a linebacker with the USFL's Denver Gold and New Orleans Breakers.
"He was nice enough to just spend some time with me, and we just talked ball," said Pease, impressed by the tempo of Utah's practice and his feeling that Whittingham did not bring "bad guys" into his program.
Pease served as a consultant during Utah's undefeated 2008 season, sitting in on meetings and joining Aaron Roderick in the booth on game days to track down and distance, field position and defensive tendencies.
In 2009, Whittingham made Pease his defensive line coach.
The Utes would win 20 games in the next two seasons, the memory of which is only soured by a blowout loss to No. 3 TCU and a "hangover" loss at Notre Dame the next week.
But by the end of 2010, the lifestyle had started to catch up with Pease. He had a couple of minor health issues, he said, that made it less fun.
So he retired. Again.
His energy level didn't wane, though. Said his wife, Chris: "Living with John when he doesn't have enough to do is like being in a phone booth with a full-grown golden retriever."
He began to exercise more frequently about three years ago — working out for two hours each day, Monday through Saturday, and walking three rounds of golf each week.
He said the tipping point came last March when he coached Division II and international players at the ProGrass International Scout Bowl in Florence, Ala. — before a crowd, he joked, of "tens" — and started to seriously entertain a return to coaching.
Still, when Pease approached Whittingham a few weeks ago, it was to recommend a friend. If Whittingham hires my friend, Pease thought, I'll ask to be considered as defensive line coach.
He never suspected that he'd become Utah's next defensive coordinator.
Back in the saddle • Pease's gait is more functional than graceful, but he's healthy enough to ascend stairs two steps at a time, on the basis that the other team is always said to be taking things "one step at a time."
For the same reason, he pulls both pant legs on simultaneously.
Walking around the facility Friday, a quip at the ready, he drew a smile from almost everyone who passed by.
"He'll always be my favorite coach ever," New England defensive tackle Sealver Siliga told The Tribune before winning the Super Bowl. "He prepared me for the NFL, even though I didn't know I was preparing for it."
New York Jets outside linebacker Trevor Reilly holds Pease in similar regard. After Reilly fell behind academically as a redshirt freshman in 2009, Pease ordered him to come to his office every day at 6 a.m. to do his work.
When Reilly complained, Pease told him that 6 a.m. is nothing — he shows up at 4:30 a.m.
(Reilly, a rare match for Pease's quirk, arrived at 4:15 a.m. the next day to welcome a bewildered Pease.)
Pease expects Whittingham to micromanage the defense — that's his job, he said. Pease compares his own involvement to Carburetion Day at the Indianapolis 500.
Not much has changed about football in four years, he said. But then, by some measures, not much has changed since he first started coaching eight-man football in Puerto Rico as an Army MP during the Vietnam War. He's seen the heydays of the veer, the wishbone and the run and shoot, but the best teams, he said, have always been those who could best block, tackle and stop the run.
And Pease also stresses to players the need to find something in their lives that they want to punish somebody for.
His type of guy, he likes to say, is former Jaguar Jeff Lageman, who told Pease his goal was to "legally hurt the guy I'm playing — and I want his mother, father and wife watching me do it to him."
Utah's coaches aren't permitted to instruct players right now, so Pease spends the bulk of his time in the film room.
He credits safeties coach Morgan Scalley for parsing last year's film into digestible reels — and more than that, for handling things graciously when Scalley himself was a natural candidate to become coordinator.
"He's the anti-Pease," he said. "He is absolutely totally organized in everything about his life. … And I'm still flying by the seat of my pants a little bit."
Above all, he credits Chris for making their home a "peaceful" place, where he leaves behind what he's been doing for 12, 13, sometimes 16 hours: "You have no idea how much that means to somebody who's been going 100 miles an hour all day."
Going 100 miles an hour all day, he might say, for 50 years.
But at the moment, it seems, going strong.
Twitter: @matthew_piper —
The John Pease file
• Coached for 17 seasons in the NFL, reaching the AFC Championship game four times with the New Orleans Saints and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
• Coached for 17 seasons in college, including back-to-back Rose Bowls under Washington legend Don James, and previous stints at Utah as a GA (1968-69), linebackers (1977) and defensive line coach (2009-10).
• Coached for three seasons in the USFL, winning the championship twice with the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars.
• Played at Fullerton Community College, where he was a junior college All-America halfback and linebacker, and at Utah, where he was selected as the team's Most Inspirational Player as a wingback in 1964, when the Utes won the Liberty Bowl.