Colts Neck High School’s head football coach Darian Barnes, a former NFL player, is stressing the mental aspect of football as well as the physical as he gets the Cougars ready for the upcoming season. Colts Neck High School’s football team has spent the summer studying. “We’ve done more classroom work than we have been outside,” said Darian Barnes, the Cougars’ new head football coach. “[The players are] required to study. We’ve looked at a lot of film.
“We talk about the players being student athletes. They have to be students of the game.”
Knowledge of the game of football is very important to Barnes. He credits it for helping him go from being an undrafted free agent out of little Hampton University to becoming a 10-year NFL veteran with a Super Bowl ring. Although he played a very physical position — blocking fullback — it was that understanding of the game that kept him in the league for so long.
“Football requires mental toughness, staying the course,” he said. “You have to be the best you are every day.”
That is what Barnes, who starred at Toms River High School North, wants to instill in the Colts Neck football team.
“The challenge is getting them to understand what they need to do,” he said. “I’m a big believer in understanding your system and all the nuances of football.
“Football is as much mental as it is physical. It’s all about adjustments, understanding your opponents and executing at a high level.”
To do that, players must be thoroughly aware of what can happen on every play, and that is why the Cougars have spent so much time in the classroom. Barnes wants his players to know and understand what every player is doing on a given play, for them to know more than just what their assignment is. He said he believes in empowering his players to make decisions on the field. Being able to anticipate what is going to happen on a play before it does gives them an edge.
Barnes comes by his studiousness from the NFL coaches he played under. It’s a Who’s Who, including Jon Gruden. Barnes won his Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that were coached by Gruden.
Gruden had such a complex playbook that he learned the necessity of studying, Barnes said.
From Maurice Carthon, Barnes explained that he learned to look at the entire defense and what every defender was doing on a play. When he played for the Miami Dolphins, he learned to break plays down better from Jason Garrett, now the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, and Bobby Williams.
“I grew under them,” he said.
Of his NFL coaches, which included Sean Payton with the New Orleans Saints, Barnes said, “It was an awesome education.”
Barnes and the Cougars went through a trying season in 2014. A year after going 10- 2 and reaching the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV for the first time in program history, the Cougars fell to 0-10 and had new head coach Pete Shaw resign before the season was completed. Barnes was named the interim coach for the remainder of the season. In the winter, the interim tag was removed from his position. “[Last season] was an exercise in patience,” Barnes said. “It put me in a position to know where we are and where we need to go.”
Barnes is a coach who won’t be beholden to one system. He believes in being flexible and playing to his team’s strengths.
“You have to identify who you have, your strengths and weaknesses,” he said.
From the players coming back, the strength of the Cougars appears to be on defense.
“I believe we have a solid defense,” Barnes said. “We have players who want to make plays.”
Thus far, the Cougars have put 2014 well behind them.
“Every year is a new team with a new set of priorities,” Barnes said.
Heading into his first training camp as a head coach, Barnes likes the progress his team has made in the offseason.
“I think we’re in a good position,” he said.
Barnes pointed out that he has a good support system at Colts Neck from the school administration and the board to the parents.
“The parents here are very passionate; they love their kids,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to be a part of the program. They’ve been an abundance of help.”
Barnes is the son of a football coach who didn’t see himself following in his father’s footsteps while he was a player. His father, Donald Barnes, coached at Pleasantville High School for 35 years. Barnes remembers his father telling him that he would make a fine head coach. It didn’t register with him at the time.
It wasn’t until he was out of pro football and working with Test Parisi Football Academy that he began to think about coaching.
An assistant coaching position opened up at his alma mater, Toms River North, and he decided to give it a shot.
“A lot of good people in my life helped me. I should do the same,” he said of his motivation.
He learned a lot that first year but, because he lives in Rahway, it made for some very long days away from his wife and their three daughters. After than 2013 season with the Mariners, his daughters told him that was enough. He then joined Shaw’s staff because Colts Neck is just a half hour away from home, which allows him to spend more time with his family.