Schutt Sports High School Coach of the Year
Steve Tutsie
Steve Tutsie has helped lead Warren Central to four straight championships
by: Terry Jacoby©
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In just his first year as a varsity head football coach, Steve Tutsie led his Warren Central Warriors to a 15-0 record and an Indiana State Class 5A championship. The Warriors were as dominant as any team in the country, outscoring their opponents 722 to 124 and winning the state championship game by a comfortable 35-14 over Carmel in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
Tutsie, 41, was so impressive under the head set that he was named the Schutt Sports National Coach of the Year. Tutsie doesn’t profess to know everything there is to know about being a head football coach – after all, he’s been head coach one season. But it’s difficult to argue with the results.
Anyone can look at the scores and stats and be impressed. But to truly be impressed with Tutsie is to look at how he accomplished these results. And the rookie coach is more than willing to share the fine details of his blueprint for success.
Tutsie’s blueprint is as simple as it is complex. When Tutsie was a player in high school he admits that he wasn’t the best, but he worked harder than most. As a coach Tutsie says that he’s not the smartest or the brightest, but few work harder preparing his players.
Warren Central certainly is a reflection of their coach – but the Warriors did have the talent. And talent and hard work usually wins. In this case, it won 15 times without a loss. “I was a seventh-grade defensive coordinator for a middle school,” Tutsie says. “That was my first job. So I tell my guys that I started at the bottom and look where I am now. They don’t have to look far to see an example of what hard work can accomplish.” That hard work showed up on both sides of the ball, in practice, on game day and during the off-season. You don’t win 15 games and a state title by just showing up on time for the kickoff.
Running It Up
Tutsie and the Warren Central football team ran a spread option offense in 2006 with the emphasis on the ground game. “We add a slice of wing-t to our offense,” he said. “We have some wing-t plays that we will use to offset off our option. What that makes us is more of a spread option/wing-t team. We have a lot of wing-t principles in our spread-option package.”
Tutsie says that he doesn’t run this offense to be different, but because it fits perfectly with both the personnel they have on the roster and the goals they are trying to accomplish on the field. “We have rushed for over 5,000 yards for every year I have been at Warren,” Tutsie said. “We are going to run the football at Warren Central. We always have had a lot of good backs.”
This year that “good back” was the outstanding senior Darren Evans, who was named Indiana’s Mr. Football after rushing for 2,806 yards and setting a state record with 61 TDs. Evans, who is headed to Virginia Tech, is the third Warrior in four years to win the Mr. Football award.
“We’re the first team in Indiana to have four 1,000-yard rushers at the 5-A level,” Tutsie says proudly. “We are going to run the football here.” So what if they didn’t have that great running back?
“I don’t think we would change that much,” Tutsie says. “The one thing to remember is that we are playing in Indiana. And that means you are going to have bad weather and there will be times you just can’t throw the ball. We are not going to let the weather dictate what we are going to do. And we are always going to have the personnel here to run this offense. We have 4,000 kids in our school and there is a great tradition of outstanding running backs. So we are going to have those guys, and we are going to give them the football.”
The Offensive Line
Warren Central’s talented running backs can certainly do some damage when they hit the secondary. And 61 times that Evans touched the ball he ended up in the end zone. But finding him some room to run and creating the seam to run through is the job of the boys up front.
“Our perfect offensive line is simple,” Tutsie said. “We like to have big guards and athletic tackles. We have had some very good offensive lines here, but the one thing I know is we are going to have good running backs. I can tell you right now who my running backs are going to be for the next five years, but I don’t know who my offensive lineman are going to be because you don’t know who is going to grow and who is done growing.
“We want to have an offensive line that is athletic first and strong second. And we had one of the strongest offensive lines in the country this year. We might not always have the biggest line, but we will always have the strongest line. And with our backs, they don’t need a whole lot. We just want to give them a sliver and they will take care of the rest.”
Quarterback
While Jeff George set a few passing records at Warren Central in the 1980s, Tutsie isn’t looking for a quarterback with a rocket arm to lead his offense. “Our quarterback has to be a guy that can run the option and read the option,” Tutsie stressed. “We need to read that option. A lot of people say that you can’t read the option in high school, but I disagree with that. We read the option here at Warren Central and it’s one of the reasons we have been successful.”
Another quality Tutsie looks for in a quarterback is toughness.“Our quarterback is going to get hit on almost every play so he needs to be tough,” Tutsie said. “I want them smart and I want them tough, but I do like the gun-slinger. There are times where we make a pitch and people will say, ‘oh, don’t pitch it,’ and it turns into a touchdown. One thing I tell my coaches and my players is that we will not teach caution and that goes for the quarterback position.”
But Tutsie does teach his quarterbacks to be especially smart when things aren’t going well. “I always tell my quarterback, do not make a bad play worse,” he said. “I have to give our quarterback a lot of credit this year. I don’t think we made a bad pitch all year. And it’s because we practice it over and over in practice and we have our No. 1 offense going against our No. 1 defense in practice and he knows he’s going to get hit if he doesn’t make a good pitch.”
Throwing the Ball
Teams that run the option also can be very good through the air. When teams line up to play Warren Central they know they have to stop the run. That gives Tutsie and his staff plenty of good looks at the passing game. “In years past we didn’t throw the ball, but I decided to make a commitment to throw the ball because it does open things up,” Tutsie said. “Being a former defensive coordinator was a big plus for us because I knew what used to give us fits. We threw the ball much more effectively this year than we did the last five years, no question about it.”
Warren Central’s leading receiver had 28 catches for 560 yards. So while they won’t be mistaken for the Florida Gators, Tutsie did bring more balance to the offense – and you can’t argue with a team that cranked out 722 points in 15 games.
“That might not sound like a lot of catches and for many teams those aren’t very good numbers for a leading receiver,” Tutsie explains, “but that’s a lot for Warren Central. We threw the ball more than 100 times and I don’t know if that’s happened at Warren Central in a long time.”
Tutsie says many teams use the run to set up the pass, but it’s even more true at Warren Central. “It’s assignment football here,” he said. “If you’re sending a guy off to take the pitch and leaving the wide receiver uncovered and we happen to catch it, you are going to pay for it.” And pay for it opponents did. Warren Central averaged a hefty 14.8 yards per reception in 2006. “People tried to put everyone up front to stop Darren Evans because they didn’t think we had a big-time quarterback, but we did have a good QB who made people pay,” Tutsie said.
Defense
Tutsie admits to not being the most patient person. “Maybe that comes from being the youngest of three boys,” he says.
And his defense is a reflection of his disregard and dislike for patience. “We are a 4-2-5 defense and we are pressure, pressure, pressure and more pressure,” says Tutsie. “We do blitz, but this year we did not blitz that much even though everyone thinks we did because we would often have eight or nine guys up on the line of scrimmage. We blitzed less this year than we ever did, but only because we had a very good front four.”
Tutsie stresses that you don’t have to blitz to bring pressure and create havoc on an offense.“I really believe in the illusion of the blitz,” he said. “I want the offense to anticipate and worry that the blitz is coming. We are going to pressure you whether we blitz or not.” Tutsie says he doesn’t like the phrase or philosophy “bend don’t break.”
“That’s loser talk,” he says. “We are going to pressure a lot, but the threat of pressure will be there on every play. What I have been most proud of as head coach and DC is we have always been a 30-30 team. We have always had 30 sacks and 30 or more turnovers.”
The Free Safety
Ask him who the most important person on his defense is and there is no hesitation, not buts and no second choices.
“Without a doubt it’s the free safety,” he says. “We have had an All-American at free safety every year since I have been here.” And while Warren Central has a roster of good athletes, the free safety needs to be someone special.
“He needs to be very athletic and needs to be as good at defending the pass as he is defending the run,” Tutsie said. “We call him the watergate guy. He’s got to fix the leak. It’s just a matter of time until a good back is going to break through the front line and you have to have a safety there who is not only going to make that tackle, but he’s got to be in the right place.
That’s so important that the free safety knows to be in the right place. You can’t make a tackle if you are out of position.”
This past season’s free safety Jerimy Finch is headed to Michigan and don’t be surprised if the freshman is on the field quite a bit for the Maize and Blue in 2007. “A lot of places have a quarterbacks coach and a secondary coach, while we have a safety coach,” Tutsie says. “That’s how important that position is to us. There will never be a time at Warren Central in which we don’t have productive safety play.”
Practice
“The hardest part about playing football at Warren is Monday through Thursday,” Tutsie says. “I can’t imagine that there is a high school football team that practices harder than we do.”
While practice is a time to learn new plays and stress technique, it’s also a time to hit. Tutsie doesn’t believe in taking it easy until game time. And if you don’t believe him, check out a practice on Tuesday or Wednesday.“Those are our work days,” Tutsie says. “Our practice tempo is upbeat because we two-platoon and I treat it just like a college program. Everyone has a position coach. We had 124 kids and half of them played offense and half played defense so they are getting great reps.” Tutsie says one of the keys to Warren Central’s success is that on Tuesday and Wednesday they scrimmage first offense vs. first defense.
“And we hit it,” he says. “And I don’t care if it’s Darren Evans or Jerimy Finch or our quarterback, it’s full go. I think this is why we have been so successful. When our kids take the field on game day, that’s the easiest part of the week. From a physical standpoint, we get out there on Tuesday and Wednesday and I think it’s a big advantage for us because we are so much more physical than the other team.”
After starting practices with emphasis on special teams, Tutsie lines the players up for the “W drill. It’s the old Oklahoma drill where there is a running back, offensive lineman and wide receiver going against a defensive lineman, a linebacker and defensive back,” he said. “And it’s live at five. We are going after it. And it sets the tone for the whole practice. We always have competitions and trust me, no one wants to lose.”
Then Tutsie lines up his first team offense against the first team defense.“I think I could sell pay-per-view for this,” he says. “This is the top ranked offense in the state going against the top ranked defense in the state in 5-A. It was unbelievable. We got this from Virginia Tech and I think it helps make you tough.” There have been times where if the starting running back is banged up, he will sit this out. But he doesn’t worry too much about injuries.
“One thing with going two-platoon is that we are not just working with 22 guys, we are working with 44 guys," Tutsie says. “Our strength is in our numbers.”
Off-season
“Football coaches want their players to play other sports,” Tutsie said. “I encourage my players to play other sports because I like players to go out and compete against other people, no matter what the sport is.” But for those not in other sports, Tutsie wants them to continue to improve in the off-season. “We have a very, very in-depth off-season program that we start in January,” he says. “Our strength coordinator sits down with every player before the Christmas break and evaluates every player and where their strength numbers need to be. Then our position coach will evaluate them based on their football skills and where they need to be.”
The team’s off-season program certainly pays off in the fall. “We win our games in January and February,” Tutsie said.
On Monday and Wednesday the team does morning workouts which includes the basic football drills and speed drills. But that’s not all.
“We do crazy things too,” Tutsie says. “We do combat drills and things like that designed to make you tough. In the off-season we really emphasize the strength, the football drills and the speed enhancement so it’s a three-tier program.
“The barometer for measuring strength is the three clubs: the 235 power clean, benching 200 pounds ten times and the 400-pound squat. We had 159 club members this year and 61 kids power-cleaned 225 pounds or more, a national record. It’s a testament to our strength coach, Brian Clarke, who sets up the programs and is always available to our players.”
The Bottom Line
Tutsie admits that winning football games is wonderful, but he also believes it's not the final measuring stick for a high school football program.
“The best thing we do here at Warren Central is getting our kids into college,” he said. “That's what our ultimate goal is here.”
And just like on the field, they've been very successful at accomplishing this goal. Tutsie says that 31 kids from Warren Central played Division 1 college football last year and more than 100 kids have gone on to play in college over the past six years. “It’s so important to us that we travel to help get our kids into college,” Tutsie said. “We went to 11 schools or combines last year alone, including trips to Iowa, Michigan, West Virginia, and Virginia Tech. We feel it's something we owe our players.”
Tutsie said they even bring an academic advisor on the trip. “While we are touring the campus and meeting the coaches, our academic advisor is meeting the college academic advisors,” Tutsie said. “I want our academic advisor to know what colleges are doing and what they expect.”
West Virginia’s Head Coach Rich Rodriguez was impressed. “Never has a high school program brought their academic support team when they visited our school.”
The Intangible
“We believe in the three P’s: physical, poise and positive,” Tutsie says. “This epitomizes what we want to be. Everybody has a motto or philosophy that they might change from time to time. But these never change for us and our eighth graders know what the three Ps are all about.”
Tutsie also says his team is like a family and he stresses that unique relationship. He also wants his players to do as well in the classroom as they do on the football field. “We are teachers after all,” he says. “And we are preparing young men for life. Not everyone is going to play in the NFL. Leadership qualities are an important part of that. I never take leadership for granted.”
Football is a physical game and Tutsie can’t stress enough that the more physical you are, the better the results.“Our drills are going to be physical, our practices are going to be physical and we are going to push you,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
If it were that simple, everyone would go 15-0 and win a state championship every year.
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