LeVar Woods found value in special teams, and Hawkeyes reap the returns

IOWA CITY — As a high school and college football player, LeVar Woods wasn’t particularly interested in special teams.

As a seven-year NFL linebacker out of Iowa, he dismissed the idea of going into coaching.

Career-wise after his playing days, “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had gotten into real estate a little bit on the advice of Emmitt Smith, who I played with at Arizona.

“A couple friends I played with in the NFL said they wanted to coach and I said there’s no way I do. Because of the time commitment, all the work that goes into coaching.

“And it’s the exact opposite.”

Here is Woods at 44, entering his 11th season as an Iowa assistant coach and sixth as special teams coordinator. His units’ excellence had much to do with the Hawkeyes winning 10 games last season.

Iowa was in the nation’s top 20 in field goals, field goal percentage, punting average, kickoff-return average, kickoff-return defense and punt-return defense.

The Hawkeyes may not have beaten Iowa State without Tory Taylor placing four of his deep punts inside the ISU 10 and Charlie Jones averaging 13.3 yards per punt return. They wouldn’t have earned their 23-20 win over Penn State without impeccable kick coverage, Taylor landing six punts inside the Lions’ 20, and Caleb Shudak making his three field goal tries, including a 48-yarder.

Then there was the regular-season finale that looked grim for the Hawkeyes at the end of the third quarter.

“Henry Marchese, the play that he made at Nebraska, that was a huge (expletive) play,” Woods said. “That totally turned a game, that totally turned a season, that put us in the Big Ten championship game.

“One play doesn’t make a game, but I think if you asked anyone on this team, that was pretty damn big.”

Iowa trailed, 21-9, in the first minute of the fourth quarter. Nebraska had a fourth down at its 27 and set up to punt. Unblocked, Marchese got a piece of the ball off the foot of the Huskers’ William Przystu, and it popped upward. Iowa’s Kyler Fisher caught it at the 14 and ran for a touchdown.

Instantly rejuvenated, the Hawkeyes dominated Nebraska the rest of the way for a 28-21 triumph. They became West champs the next day when Minnesota beat Wisconsin.

Marchese did what Woods preaches to Hawkeye players, what Woods has done himself. He seized opportunity.

WOODS FINISHED HIS 88-GAME NFL CAREER as a Tennessee Titan in 2007. He and his wife, Meghann, considered starting their post-football lives in Nashville or Arizona. Ultimately, they instead chose Iowa City. They have three children. The oldest, daughter Sydney, recently graduated from West High.

“We wanted to raise our kids here,” Woods said. “We took a flyer and moved here and I started working with Coach (Kirk Ferentz) on the staff in recruiting.”

He was a low-paid administrative assistant for four years. The work included mastering social media and establishing a website for the program.

“I started getting restless,” Woods said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had started a summer camp (the LeVar Woods Football Academy) at Okoboji that sort of sparked me.”

During the 2010 season, then-Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker had a foot amputated because of complications from diabetes, and Woods became an interim assistant coach in Parker’s absence.

“I was hooked,” Woods said.

Defensive assistant coach Rick Kaczenski took a job at Nebraska in December 2011, and Ferentz made Woods his linebackers coach. Before the 2015 season, Ferentz asked Woods to consider switching to tight ends coach.

“I think he knew I needed to broaden my horizons in the coaching field, part of professional development,” Woods said. “I was reluctant. I didn’t want to do it. He kept saying ‘LeVar, this is an easy decision.’ It wasn’t an easy decision for me.

“But at the end of that year, I thanked him for it because it completely changed my life in a coaching sense. (Tight ends) Henry Krieger-Coble, George Kittle, Jake Duzey — I learned more from them than I taught them.”

From the time he became an Iowa assistant, Woods helped coach special teams. He became tight ends coach/special teams coordinator in 2017. When the NCAA allowed football staffs to go from nine to 10 assistants before the 2018 season, special teams coordinator became Woods’ exclusive job.

“The way I saw it, it was the chance to run my own show. I didn’t quite know what it would be, I just knew it was an opportunity,” Woods said.

“He carved out a really nice NFL career being mostly a reserve linebacker, but also a key special teams guy,” Ferentz said after that Nebraska win. “So genealogy-wise, there’s a little bit of that in his blood, maybe.”

Each year since 2018, Iowa has had either the Big Ten’s kicker, punter or return specialist of the year. They were coached by someone who, as a Hawkeye player, just wanted to play on defense.

WOODS GREW UP IN ALVORD, a tiny town in Iowa’s northwest corner. At West Lyon High, he was the state’s Class 2A Player of the Year in 1995. He was recruited to Iowa by Hayden Fry. In 1997, he was a humbled redshirt freshman.

“I had run down 11 kickoffs and seven or eight punt returns,” Woods said. “Bret Bielema was in charge of both those units. He benched me. I never asked him why. I stunk. Because I didn’t see the value. I didn’t understand the impact special teams make as a player.”

Woods went on to become a stellar linebacker for the Hawkeyes. He didn’t get drafted by an NFL team, but signed with the Arizona Cardinals and played for four teams over his seven years in the league.

What helped keep him in the pros? Playing on special teams.

“It wasn’t because I was some great linebacker,” Woods said.

“I’ve never snapped the ball in a game in my life. But I was a backup snapper on every NFL team I played on.

“In competition with linebackers, a guy I competed with is now a coach in college football. I ran into him two weeks ago on the road. He knows and I know the reason I won a job at Detroit and again at Tennessee was because when we all got done with linebacker drills I said I could snap.

“It was ‘OK, Woods, get over there and snap.’ After two perfect snaps, ‘All right, good, we’re going to take you instead of him.’”

He never had to snap in an NFL game, for which he insists he is forever grateful. But his experience meshes with what he tells his players.

“The more you can do,” he said, “the more ways you make yourself valuable.”

HE CAN’T TELL TAYLOR how to punt a football. But Woods can identify recruits with potential to excel, and can cement relationships with them. He flew to Australia — and sat in a middle seat on a 14-hour flight there from San Francisco — to get to know Taylor and his family.

He provides kickers intricate structure. He has them put their goals on a whiteboard in the special teams room and helps them chart how they’re reaching them. He supplies them with data and video to help show them what works for them and why.

“I’ve always said I’m just a conduit,” Woods said. “It’s putting a plan in place.”

However, that Marchese block at Nebraska came from coaching and film study. Like offense and defense, each special teams unit is 11 players trying to gel.

“I’ve been asked if I had the chance to be a defensive coordinator or offensive coordinator, would I do it?” Woods said. “I can’t say I wouldn’t, but I don’t have any desire to do it right now. On special teams, I have a relationship with every kid on the team unless they’re an offensive lineman, quarterback or defensive lineman that isn’t involved with them.

“We’re teaching every kid because their football skills are not just for special teams. They’re playing football in open spaces, blocking and tackling. I think that’s helped make us a better football team in general.”

Successful young coordinators at Power Five conference schools usually become head coaches.

“I would like to be a head coach someday,” he said without hesitation. “But I’m not dying to be a head coach. I’m not willing to do anything to be a head coach. That’s not me.

“If I were to leave here, I’m not sure I wouldn’t go to high school coaching because of the impact you can make on one person. The single-best impact a coach has had on my life was from my high school coaches.

“But you know, I love being here, love the people I work with. I brought this up the other day to someone that’s decided to leave the program, that not every place is as gung-ho about special teams, that gives you the same resources we have here. Time, I’m talking about, time and effort put into it.

“Coach Ferentz is unbelievable to work for. I’ve talked to other people in the business and they’re like ‘What? That’s how it is there? Don’t ever leave there. Don’t ever leave Iowa.’

“This is home for me. I didn’t come here to coach. It just kind of happened, and worked out.”

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com