Miami assistant coach, 72, tries to rejuvenate the offense

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Miami University football offensive coordinator Morris Watts talks to Roman Lawson at practice on Wednesday, August 18, 2010.

Staff photo by Samantha Grier Miami University football offensive coordinator Morris Watts talks to Roman Lawson at practice on Wednesday, August 18, 2010.

The RedHawks’ Morris Watts is the third-oldest coach in college football.

By Pete Conrad, Staff Writer Updated 7:47 AM Friday, August 20, 2010

OXFORD — At 72 years of age, Morris Watts is the third-oldest coach in college football. That beats everyone except a pair of legends, Penn State’s Joe Paterno (83) and Florida Atlantic’s Howard Schnellenberger (76).

But the Miami University offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach can, and does, work a daily schedule which would leave most younger men gasping for breath.

“Every morning I look forward to going to work,” said Watts, noting that he has “zero regrets” about returning to the college game following a brief retirement. “I just hope I can keep doing it for a few more years, because I’m not tired, I can get up and be here as early as I have to be. I can get in here at 6 (a.m.), and it doesn’t bother me, and stay until 10 or 11 (p.m.), whatever.”

His mission is simple.

“We want to get this turned around,” Watts said. “It’s a lot more fun to win than it is to be on that other side.”

It just might take 16 or 17 hours a day for Watts and company to get the RedHawks offense onto some firm footing, especially a running game that in 2009 ranked 119th in a nation that has only 120 big-division teams.

Watts does have the credentials, and you don’t have to look far.

Last year, he was solely the quarterbacks coach under offensive coordinator Peter Vaas, who has since moved on to the University of South Florida.

Under Watts’ direction, redshirt freshman Zac Dysert passed for 337 yards and ran for 107 in his first start against Kent State, and passed for 426 yards and three TDs against Temple.

No one should be surprised.

As the quarterbacks and wide receivers coach under Lee Corso at Indiana, Watts was part of a staff that took a program that was a Big Ten Conference doormat guided the Hoosiers to the 1979 Holiday Bowl.

That was only one of 11 bowl games for Watts, whose other notable stops included Michigan State and LSU.

Watts retired in 2003 following a season at Mississippi State. He and another retiree, Carl “Bull” Reese (who now is Miami’s defensive coordinator), became neighbors.

“Coach Reese and I, we hunted and fished in some form of the two just about every day,” Watts said. “We only lived about 20 minutes by boat and 30 minutes by car away from each other, right on a lake, Table Rock Lake in Branson, Mo. A beautiful lake.”

Watts said he was bored with retirement, a sentiment he obviously shared with Reese. And then Watts got a call from Michael Haywood.

“When I was the offensive coordinator at LSU, Coach Haywood was the running backs coach,” Watts said. “We developed a real bond, and when he became the head coach here and asked me to come and join the program, I was excited.

“This will be my 48th year coaching,” he added. “As I got up there in the years in coaching, one of the things I enjoyed the most about it was that no matter if I was tired toward the end of the season, if we lost on a Saturday, by the time the kids showed up on Monday or Sunday to practice, they had me fired up and ready to go again.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.

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