Norm Chow’s reputation as one of the great passing game play callers is legendary, but it had nothing to do with analytics.
Chow used great instincts to work through a game plan both in college and the NFL – until Dowell Loggains became his right hand man with the Tennessee Titans in 2006. Chow was offensive coordinator with Loggains serving as a quality control analyst.
“That was when I learned about analytics,” Chow said. “I’m not sure we were calling it that when Dowell joined us with the Titans. But what he did for me was just fabulous. He had answers before I had questions. He was incredibly valuable.
“What he gave me when we made our plans and then what we did in the press box was always two steps ahead of anything that happened and that was Dowell. He anticipated because of the information that he’d gathered.”
Chow said Loggains would be just as valuable on Sam Pittman’s staff at Arkansas as tight ends coach.
Chow knows a thing or two about college football. He is best known for his years as a college coordinator and he won the 2002 Broyles Award as part of Pete Carroll’s staff at Southern Cal. The list of college quarterbacks tutored by him include Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Ty Detmer, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.
“I think Dowell will do a great job for Sam and Kendal Briles,” Chow said. “I don’t know a lot about the no huddle. It took me longer to figure things out. I will say that when we were together with the Titans, we’d split the calls in the press box. I’d make one and he’d make one.”
Told what Chow said, Loggains said it was the kind of data that he learned from working in the Dallas Cowboys’ scouting department for Bill Parcells in 2005. Parcells was ahead of the trend in analytics.
“I just brought to Tennessee the stuff that Dallas was using the design game plans with advanced analytic trends,” Loggains said. “It was self scouting and knowing your tendencies and knowing the tendencies of the opponent.
“Coach Chow was such an instinctive play caller, but some of the stuff we could provide could help him some. The idea was just to provide him with as much data as we could with our scouting.”
Chow is a believer in that kind of help in scouting now, but there are times that analytics frustrate him while watching his favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“I guess that’s what it’s all about now, analytics,” Chow said. “The Dodgers don’t bunt, they don’t push the runners and it drives me nuts.”
Chow got to love the way Loggains presented the analytics.
“One thing I’ll say is that Dowell as a young coach was really good in knowing the dynamics of a staff,” Chow said. “He always had the answers, but he presented them in the right way. You’ve got to know when to shut up when you are the young guy in the staff room.
“He is so smart. But you have to be careful not to say too much. I’d say the best thing about Dowell is that he’s a great guy.”
Chow knows just as importantly, Loggains is an Arkansas guy returning to his roots. He was a walk-on quarterback with the Hogs from 2001-04 and played mainly as a holder on extra points and field goals.
“I think that is a dream come true for Dowell, to be back with the Razorbacks,” Chow said. “He’s been a devoted (fan) all of these years. I knew that when we were together with the Titans.”
The 40-year-old Loggains, born in Newport, is a product of west Texas football. But he has always kept up with the Hogs during his 17 years in the NFL.
“It’s surreal that I’m back,” he said. “All through my time in the NFL, I’d use pro day as a reason to come back so I could see campus – even if Arkansas didn’t have anyone we wanted at that time.
“It would give me a chance to see friends like Zak Clark and so many others. To be back and have this job is really emotional. It may take me a few weeks to sort through all of this.”
Pittman didn’t have a difficult sell.
“I knew we were going to love each other because I knew what kind of person I’d be working for – from talking to so many of his former players that I’d coached in the NFL,” he said. “Guys like Travis Swanson would talk about Sam.
“I’d coached guys from Georgia and Arkansas. I met Sam at Georgia’s pro day. What you knew was that he was going to give you straight up answers on his guys and they were always accurate. Most of the time he’d point to one of his linemen and say, ‘That guy is going to be the first guy taken,’ and he was right.”
As far as his Razorback roots, Loggains said, “It’s been my school since I was a 5-year old. And what I have told people all through the years of being gone, once you are a Razorback, you are always a Razorback. Even when I was gone, I kept up. My closest group of friends is from my days here. Those relationships are more important than any others.”
The job interview was over the phone. It wasn’t like Loggains had to visit.
“When it finally came down to the decision, Sam just sent me a text that said, ‘All you have to do to become a Razorback again is to reply, ‘YES,’ and I did.
“The thing about Sam, the more I talked to him, the more passion for Arkansas I felt from him. I just knew that it was the perfect time for me to come back.
“Maybe some other times it wasn’t the perfect timing. It is now because I have heard Sam talk about his vision for this place. It matches mine.
“He’s such a good fit. Of course, he had me from the start. When he sent that text that said just say yes, I was in tears.”
The tears came back when he returned to the Broyles Center to sign his contract.
“I flew in the night before and because of some flight trouble in Chicago, it was after midnight,” he said. “I got to my hotel and then couldn’t sleep. So I got in the car and drove around campus and town until 4 a.m. I just wanted to take it all in that I was home.
“I came in the next morning and after signing the contract, I went downstairs to see the new locker room. Fantastic. The old team room is gone and when you walk out the tunnel, it’s like you are in a pro stadium.
“There’s one thing that is missing from all of those great stadiums around the country. You walk out to the middle of the field and turn (to the west) and on the press box it says, ‘Home of the Razorbacks.’ I got chills and was in tears again.”
Standing in the middle of the field, the voices of his past came back.
“I could hear Joe Ferguson’s voice or David Lee’s voice,” he said. “I could hear Houston Nutt’s speeches. I just stood there and thought about those men.”
Nutt, head coach for the Hogs during Loggains time, said he was delighted that his former player has come full circle to coach at his alma mater.
“He’s a Razorback,” Nutt said. “All he wanted to be growing up was a Razorback.
“He was great for us. He was such a good example and just great in meetings. I think as a walk-on he embraced his role, both in the quarterbacks room to help others and as our holder. He was so reliable in both roles.
“Dowell was roommate on the road with Matt Jones and I think it was a good thing. He knew that game plan and they’d go over it together. It was like having a coach in the room with Matt. He’d quiz Matt and they were good teammates to each other.”
Lee was the quarterbacks coach for Nutt who had an incredible group. Now with the Miami Dolphins as analyst, Lee responded to a text with some wonderful thoughts about his old crew.
“I had Dowell as a quarterback in 2001 and 2002 along with Zak Clark, Matt Jones, Tarvaris Jackson and Ryan Sorahan,” Lee said. “That’s a first-round draft pick in Jones, a second-round draft pick in Jackson, and a Saints free agent in Sorahan, and Dowell, a four-time NFL offensive coordinator.”
Loggains could both ask questions and answer them in Lee’s quarterback meetings.
“Dowell asked more questions than any one in the QB meetings,” Lee said. “And they were good hard questions! I should have known then his passion for the game would lead him into coaching.
“He was a tremendous holder, too. He held four years with 100% perfect ball placements. I can appreciate that because I held in high school and at Vanderbilt, where we had back-to-back First-Team All-SEC Kickers.”
Lee recalled that Hawkins Golden was 13 for 15 in 1973 and then Mark Adams broke his record with 14 for 16 in 1974.
“Dowell’s coordinator experience (with the Titans, Bears, Dolphins and Jets) will be a wealth of information and have a unique way of analyzing opposing teams when they game plan every week,” Lee said. “He is smart, tough and will be dead honest with everyone in that building. Dowell is a big part of my quarterback family.”
Lee worked for Ken Hatfield and Nutt at Arkansas and feels a part of the school’s legacy of winning football.
“I am really encouraged by the direction Sam Pittman has the Hogs going,” Lee said. “I like the toughness and discipline I see on the field when I break down Arkansas games. That has been missing since Houston Nutt left.
“I read Sam’s quotes as much as possible and like Houston, he gets it! I met Sam once when he was an assistant there and found out he is best friends with Rex Ryan who I worked for twice and loved working with.”
Loggains has had great mentors. He was lucky to get his start out of college on the Parcells staff.
“I had a chance to go to South Carolina and work with Steve Spurrier as a grad assistant,” Loggains said. “I knew Chris Mortensen through his son Alex and he pushed me toward my first job with Dallas in the scouting department.
“Chris kept saying it was a no-brainer to go there because of that staff, but I also thought working for Spurrier would have been great. It turned out right. I learned so much from some great men that did a lot of great things as head coaches and played big roles.”
That 2005 Dallas staff with Parcells included Sean Payton, Mike Zimmer, Todd Haley, Todd Bowles, Anthony Lynn, Tony Sparano, Gary Gibbs, Freddie Kitchens and Mike MacIntyre. Seven became NFL head coaches and others have been coordinators in the NFL and college.
“I learned evaluation and coaching from Parcells, one of the best of the best,” Loggains said. “I have never recruited, but I was taught evaluation techniques from Parcells that I think will be assets in recruiting. I think you evaluate talent to recruit and you do that in the NFL.
“As a coordinator, I evaluated more than just tight ends. So this might be a much more narrow focus and include fewer players.
“Then, the recruiting part, it’s selling. I probably have a hard time selling myself, but I can sure sell Arkansas. That’s going to be so easy. I know Arkansas and believe in it.
“I think once we get players to campus, we can get them. This place is so wonderful. It’s so different. Everywhere I look – and I’m not just talking about athletics or football – I see something new.
“Of course, the foundation is Coach (Frank) Broyles, but Hunter Yurachek has done a great job, too.”
Some might think a coach with a background handling quarterbacks might not fit as a tight ends coach. Barry Lunney Jr. proved it was possible from 2013-19, a time that included highly successful tight ends Hunter Henry, Jeremy Sprinkle and A.J. Derby.
“Yes, I was a quarterback guy, but if you are a coordinator in the NFL, you coach all 11 guys on offense,” Loggains said. “NFL meeting rooms are different. You have the entire offense in one room. You install as a group, you watch tape as a group. So I coached every position to some degree.”
There was no direct relationship with Briles, the second-year Arkansas offensive coordinator.
“But I feel like I know him,” Loggains said. “I played at Abilene (Cooper) and my coach was Randy Allen. That’s a Texas legend and the other one is Art Briles. I know everything (the Briles family) has done. I’m excited to learn and work with Kendal.
“I’m into the playbook. It’s huge and I’m staying late at night. I’ve been in my office until midnight and I’ll have quite a few more nights like this. I’ve got camp, recruiting and the playbook coming at me is like drinking out of a water hose. But it’s great. I can look out my window and I see Reynolds Razorback Stadium lit up.
“I’m loving every second. I’ don’t like down time. It was funny, Zak Clark called me at 11 p.m. last night. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I’m in my office looking at recruiting tape.
“It’s really not much different than the offseason getting ready for the draft. It’s evaluation.”
And if his mind drifts off from a task, he thinks about the relationships from his former coaches.
“Joe Ferguson made us run the stadium steps if we messed up,” he said. “David Lee made us run laps for an interception.
“I think about running through the ‘A.’ I hear the band. I hear the calling of the Hogs.”
Yes, Dowell Loggains can sell the Razorbacks.