Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

When Al Golden was fired as University of Miami coach last October, one of the first phone calls he got was from Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell.

Golden was reeling from five rough seasons at Miami that started with an NCAA investigation into improprieties from before his tenure began and ended with a blowout loss to Clemson, the worst in the program’s illustrious history.

Caldwell, who coached Golden as a player at Penn State, called to offer his emotional support, and a few months he reached out again with something more substantive.

The Lions hired Golden as their tight ends coach in early February, and as the team wraps up its off-season program today, Golden said his new position has helped reinvigorate his love for the game.

“I needed this right now,” Golden told the Free Press after practice Wednesday. “I was a head coach for 10 years. I just felt like – I felt like I was burnt out, and I needed this. It’s been great. I’m coaching offense. I’ve been rejuvenated. Just exposing myself every day to something new in the league.”

A career college coach who spent five seasons at Miami from 2011-15, Golden is working as an offensive assistant and in the NFL for the first time in his life.

He played tight end in college, but since starting his career as a graduate assistant in 1994 has worked exclusively on the defensive side of the ball with Boston College, Penn State and Virginia.

In 2006, he took over a Temple program that was one of the worst in the college football and turned it into a Mid-American Conference power, and when he left for Miami in 2011 he did so as a rising star in the coaching ranks.

Golden went just 32-25 in four-plus seasons with the Hurricanes, but his record only tells half the story. The university spent part of his tenure on probation from a booster scandal, and self-imposed bowl bans during Golden’s first two years with the program.

“At the end of the day, I took the job without knowing that there was an impending NCAA investigation and eight months into it, it blew up and it took its toll at the end of the day, and that’s it,” Golden said. “I haven’t looked back since. I miss the players. I miss the people that were supportive of my family and I, the people that were friends. But other than that we’ve moved on and now I’m looking after a new group.”

Caldwell praised Golden this spring as a detail-oriented player and a hard-working coach, and he said Wednesday that Golden’s experience as a head coach is invaluable because it gives him “a little bit more of an overall perspective on things.”

“I think it tends to sometimes make you a little bit better when you do become an assistant,” Caldwell said. “I did it on a couple of occasions and I don’t think it was a detriment. I think, matter of fact, he’s a real bonus to our whole unit.”

Golden, who said he worked closely with the offensive line and tight end groups in his head coaching stops, has seen that value first hand this spring.

“I think the biggest transition for me is not the individual drills or any of those things because I’ve been a part of it,” Golden said. “I think the transition for me has been the nomenclature and just being introduced to a new system, which until you know it inside and out, you should have a little edge about you. And that’s what I have right now. I have a little edge to learn every day and it’s been awesome.”

This spring, Golden has worked closely with Eric Ebron, who once torched his Miami team for eight catches and 199 yards and is expected to take on a bigger role in the Lions offense this year, and he’s helped develop undrafted rookie Cole Wick, who was one of the biggest surprises of OTAs.

He knows much of the Lions staff from previous college stops – he worked with offensive line coach Ron Prince at Virginia and cornerbacks coach Tony Oden at Boston College – and he said he’s happy to be back neck-deep in actual football again rather than dealing with some of the superfluous stuff that goes along with being a college head coach.

“That sense of drain, of burnout, is long gone,” Golden said. “This place has (rejuvenated me) and the players are a big part of it.”

Still, Golden wouldn’t rule out returning to college as a head coach one day, though he said that’s the furthest thing from his mind now.

“I think I have too much experience and just because I started young as a head coach, sometimes people look at it like, ‘Well, he’s already been a head coach,’” Golden said. “But I’m not 57. I’m 46, so I started young as a head coach and I’ve got a world of experience and I think this is just the next chapter for me so we’ll see where it goes. It’s too early to start thinking about that, but I know I’m skilled in that aspect of it. I’ve been a defensive coordinator, I’ve been a special teams coordinator, I’ve coached five or six different positions and now I’m coaching on the offense in the NFL”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett

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