BOULDER — Hall of Famers don’t often make great teachers.
Then, you hear the stories about Marshall Faulk at CU, and you think differently.
He was the exception as a player. Why can’t he be as a coach?
Faulk is one of the greatest NFL running backs ever, capable of slicing a defensive tackle’s heart out with a cutback and embarrassing a linebacker on a swing pass.
But there is a reason people say those who can’t play coach.
The top 1% athletes lack patience and struggle to understand why others don’t pick up things as easily as they do.
For every Mike Munchak, a man with a gold jacket who was the gold standard as an NFL offensive line coach, there is a Mike Singletary, who failed to make a smooth transition from the helmet to the headset.
Faulk, though, should work. Will work. Must work if the Buffs are going to reach a bowl game — the yearly expectation after athletic director Rick George made Deion Sanders one of the highest-paid coaches in college football this offseason.
This experiment with Faulk has a chance to be really good. That was my impression after talking with CU running backs, the position for which Faulk is responsible, earlier this month.
First, the bar is low. The Buffs ground game was ground chuck last season. They seldom ran the ball while featuring Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter. And when they did, they were awful, ranking 134th at 65.2 yards per game. Faulk, as a player at San Diego State, used to burp that out in a quarter.
His brain, not his brawn, is now the critical piece. The play always beats the players. When taught correctly.
And Faulk is pulling straight from his beautiful football mind in Boulder.
“He has shown us how to get on the board,” sophomore tailback Micah Welch said.
The draft board?
“No, the whiteboard. He has us draw up plays. One thing the NFL looks for is players who are smart and understand the game. You can see things on the field, but it helps you see them a lot better if you know what the defense is really trying to do. What type of linebackers are you dealing with? Are they physical or fast? How do they tackle? All of it matters to him.”
They still tell stories in Indianapolis about Faulk’s one season as Peyton Manning’s teammate. They were scientists so deep into the minutiae that they had to be separated from others whose heads were spinning and eyes glazing over.
When Faulk joined the Rams in 1999, new offensive coordinator Mike Martz realized his RB1 had a PhD in football.
“It’s my very first meeting with the offense. I am amped up. Marshall is sitting in the front row, and I get going, and he says, ‘Hey, coach, can I stop you for a moment?’ ” Martz told The Post this week. “He says, ‘Coach, I see a couple of guys in here without pencils. How can you come to a meeting like this without a pencil to take notes?’ ”
Martz looked down as Faulk talked, noticing he had different color highlighters, a protractor, and multiple notebooks.
“His awareness was off the charts,” Martz said. “He had such a passion for the game. He wanted to understand it at a different level. I have been around some good ones, but there is no one like him. He is going to help those kids at CU go beyond the surface knowledge. I have no doubt about that.”
There are a lot of system coaches. They can teach. They know the what, but not the why. That is the missing piece Martz believes Faulk will provide. Think Will Hunting vs. Equations.
Faulk is passing on that knowledge to his players, giving them an edge that goes beyond their athleticism.
“When he put us on the whiteboard, it was the best thing. He made me draw my favorite play, then draw a defense it would work against. Then he had me draw a defense that it wouldn’t work against,” senior transfer running back DeKaylon Taylor said. “We had to explain it to him. That really helps.”
Aptitude is required. So far, it sounds like the CU backs are getting it. But has it translated into application?
“We have seen it work on the field, I promise you that,” Taylor said. “If you know where the extra guys are coming from and where you can make that cut at the right time, it makes a difference. There have been times in practice where I made a good run and get over to the sideline and tell him, ‘Yeah, you were right.’ ”
Broncos coach Sean Payton experienced this three decades ago as Faulk’s running backs coach at San Diego State. Faulk became must-see TV as a three-time All-American. But what happened behind the curtain was just as impressive.
“He knew the protections, the passing game, the running game. Had it down cold. You have to feed that, or they get bored,” Payton said. “I recall trying to get the quarterback (playbook) test just to challenge him mentally. With his football IQ, now that he’s coaching, it doesn’t surprise me.”
Still, it will be a shock to some if Faulk is successful. He is 52 and has never coached at any level. Can he relate to kids on a college campus where AI doesn’t exactly inspire critical thinking?
“I have learned so much from him,” Welch said. “He is teaching us how to be more patient, showing us how the right reads lead to big plays. We are going to run the ball more, and it’s going to be effective.”
Told about a player’s assessment of Faulk, Martz nodded. Faulk, he believes, will thrive as a coach for precisely the reasons that made him a great player, not in spite of them.
“I remember one time he came up to me on the practice field and said, ‘Hey, coach, I saw on film that they ran this blitz one time three years ago. How are we going to block it?’ I was like, ‘(Darn’t) Marshall,’ ” Martz said. “I had been up all night thinking about the same thing and hoped he wouldn’t notice. So I just told him if they show that look, just call timeout. That is Marshall. Those kids are going to learn the game and learn to compete at the highest level from him.”
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