Heffernan first thought of coaching at Stanford while with the Lions
Terry Heffernan has had his sights set on working at Stanford for almost eight years. The new offensive line coach for the Cardinal has been on the job for two months and so far the experience is what he imagined all those years ago.
Heffernan joined the Detroit Lions staff in 2013 and he was an assistant offensive line coach with the Lions until 2015. He remembers how impressed he was when he evaluated Andrus Peat, Joshua Garnett and other Cardinal linemen during those years when they entered the NFL Draft.
“I love the linemen that they put out,” he recalled thinking. “They’re well coached and they have a great scheme. These guys are totally pro ready.
“On top of it, you start to hear things about the university, the campus and Coach (David) Shaw. If this job is ever open one day I’ll probably go after it. I probably said that (to my wife, Jamie) seven or eight years ago.”
Kevin Carberry took the offensive line job with the LA Rams in February and Jamie called Terry to let him know the spot was open: “Do you want to go after this?”
A job opening in football is a lot like job openings in other very competitive fields in that if you don’t have a reference from someone in the organization then it’s almost impossible to get the gig. Heffernan had never had any contact with the Stanford staff and didn’t know anyone in the football offices, but he did have some friends in common with Shaw.
He got in touch with the head coach and after a successful conversation via FaceTime he was invited to do a “formal Zoom” interview.
“That’s when I really delved into my research, because I already had a very good job in Buffalo with a team that I think is going to contend to win the Super Bowl this year,” Heffernan said. “I certainly wasn’t racing out of that situation.
“Every next person I talked to just had incredible things to say, for starters, about Coach Shaw — the quality of person he is, the quality of the organization that he’s built here, and how he conducts business. Beyond that, what this university offers, the type of kids you get to work with, so the more people I talked to, the more I got excited.”
Obviously the Zoom interview went well and when Heffernan was offered the job he already had clearance from his wife, who held final veto power. Jamie has worked at Google for 14 years and has visited the headquarters in Mountain View often. She also was familiar with Stanford, so she provided an important on-the-ground scout of the area since Terry did the entire interview process without stepping foot on campus.
“She was the one I was going to have to get approval from anyways and she was like, ‘It’s awesome! It’s so nice. I’d love to live there.’ That made it pretty easy,” Heffernan laughed.
Stanford announced the hiring of Heffernan on March 10 to officially complete Heffernan’s second roundtrip from college to the NFL and back to college. The same emotions have pulled him back to college football both times.
“I miss the type of relationships you can have as a college coach. The players in the NFL are very much your co-workers. It’s a very different relationship. I’m not saying it’s bad; I have some friends for life I’ve coached at that level.”
Heffernan described the powerful bond that is created when a family entrusts a son to be developed by a coach who can end up being one of the most impactful mentors in the young man’s life.
“That’s such a rewarding part of what we do and it’s what I got in coaching for,” he said.
The reputation of Stanford’s locker room culture as one of the strongest pillars of the program has been proven true for Heffernan.
“If I’m being honest, the biggest thing that jumps out about the group is the type of people they are. Their receptiveness to a new guy coming in and changing some things … and things that are brand new to these guys, they haven’t batted an eye,” he said of his impression of the players so far.
“When you’re working in college there is about seven to eight percent at the bottom of your job that is the part you don’t enjoy at all. That’s chasing kids to class, that’s having to deal with off-the-field issues, that’s having to motivate unmotivated guys. There is none of that. I don’t know what our discipline policy is because I haven’t had to deal with it in two months being here. I don’t know what our class check policy is, so that has been incredibly refreshing and was a big part of the excitement to come to Stanford.”
On the field his evaluation of the players before he even got the job was incredibly thorough. The NFL has access to every team’s game videos (not the broadcast view but for the coaches) and Heffernan watched about 20 games, focusing on the offense.
Some of the players he watched at the beginning of that period improved enough toward the end that he said he found himself wondering: “That can’t be the same No. 66. Or that can’t be the same No. 73. Oh, it is. Or 75? Was he a freshman there? Yeah, he was. This guy still has years of eligibility left.
“It’s really hard to come in from high school and play a developmental position like offensive line early in your career. It’s very, very hard. We live in a world of six-inch steps (on the line) and having more experience to anticipate what the defense is doing can make a huge difference. High school kids don’t have that experience to have that knowledge.”
How well the guys are doing now after they were thrown into games probably way too early is a testament to their mental toughness, he said. Heffernan has been testing their physical abilities during spring practices.
“This group is probably more athletic than I thought they were on tape,” he said. “The guys have done a really good job of latching onto some of the things that I was selling and a lot of that involves running off the ball and movement skills. With each practice you can see each guy’s athleticism, especially for being as big as they are. That was something I was really impressed with.”
Stanford must replace two starters from last season's line: center Drew Dalman and right tackle Foster Sarell. Dalman was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons and was considered one of the best centers in the country. Sarell signed with the Baltimore Ravens.
The first chance anyone outside the program will have to look at the progress of the unit under new leadership will be the spring game, scheduled for May 22.