CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- Ephraim Banda shares his story matter-of-factly, laying out how he went from bartender to 25-year-old college football player to Mack Brown underling to Mark Richt assistant. He never pauses and says, "Now here is the wildest part of all!"

Because in his modest view, he did what was required to get what he wanted. Banda might just have the most improbable success story in college football. The difficulty is trying to figure out which part of his story is the most improbable.

"Like Ephraim did, you almost have to kick the door down," Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz said. "Some people get that genuine American story mailroom opportunity."

You could say his ancestors did the same. His paternal great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Nuevo Leon, Mexico. His maternal grandfather was born in a boxcar in Somerset, Texas; his maternal grandmother also was born in Mexico.

Growing up in San Antonio, Banda loved sports -- football most of all. He played cornerback at Taft High School, where his defensive coordinator, Don Lloyd, relied on him to be a coach on the field. Banda describes himself as a good, but not great, player.

At 25 years old, Ephraim Banda walked on to the Incarnate Word football team. Courtesy Ephraim Banda

"He had a strong grasp of things we were doing defensively," Lloyd said. "He was good about getting kids lined up. He had good communication skills, leadership skills, and was a go-between me and his teammates. He assumed a lot of that because he wanted to."

Banda was undersized at 5-foot-9, but he did get a few scholarship offers to smaller schools. He turned them down, opting to go to junior college and potentially walk on somewhere. The day he graduated high school, he left his father's house and went to work and live on his own while taking classes.

He tried out bartending and realized he was really good at it -- and that he could make enough money to cover the cost of his classes and living expenses. In between the job and school, Banda stayed in football shape, playing in full-pads amateur leagues full of players just trying to stay connected to the game.

Banda founded one such team in San Antonio, the Rhinos, and worked as a player-coach. The games were not for the faint of heart.

"It's aggressive, tough football," said his father, Dan. "It's more like a cage fight. I saw a finger fall off one of the players playing defense."

But Banda was determined to still play college football. He got his chance in 2007, when he decided to walk on to a start-up program at Incarnate Word, a small school in San Antonio. He was 25. Because Banda was not on scholarship, he had to keep working his bartender job to pay his bills.

"I wasn't going to ask my dad or my mom," Banda said. "I took out loans and what I couldn't pay, I had to make the money in the bar. Bartending was the only thing that was open at night after practice to make some decent money to pay the tuition."

Banda still remembers the first team meeting at Incarnate Word, walking across the dirt and gravel that would eventually become their field. The unfinished field house still had plastic hanging from the windows. Something appealed to him about helping start a football program, and he learned a lesson that he still carries with him: "It's not what you don't have. You've just got to make it work."

He was the elder statesman on the team, and the coaching staff relied on Banda to provide leadership. He gained something from the staff, too. Banda knew he could not play for much longer, so he began to pursue his desire to become a college football coach.

It would not be easy, not with the schedule he had to keep. Banda would work late into the night tending bar. A few hours later, he had to be on campus for either practice or workouts. That meant sleeping in his car sometimes or crashing on a friend's couch. Or sometimes not sleeping at all.

"You learn your body doesn't need a lot of sleep to function, like the military," Banda said. "When you're determined and you have an end goal and you're locked in, you're going to do whatever it takes."

While bartending to pay for college, Ephraim Banda met all kinds of characters, including comedian George Lopez. Courtesy of Ephraim Banda

Banda eventually landed a scholarship, but his career ended when he blew out his knee in a game in 2010, at age 28. The injury allowed him to focus full time on coaching. He worked as a graduate assistant at Incarnate Word while keeping his eye on other opportunities.

It was then he got two big breaks. Caesar Martinez, an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Incarnate Word, got a job at Texas. Banda began peppering Martinez to slyly drop his name to the coaching staff. The NCAA had doubled graduate assistant spots from two to four, and Banda saw an opening.

Martinez worked closely with then-Texas assistant Duane Akina, who coached defensive backs. One day after a meeting, Martinez asked about the open graduate assistant spot. Akina recalled Martinez said: "Coach, I have a friend that would love to come here. He's passionate about football. It would be a dream come true for him."

"Does he work as hard as you?" Akina replied.

"Yes sir!" Martinez said.

"Tell him he's hired," Akina said.

Banda made his own first impression, attending a coaching convention in the state. He made it a point to "accidentally" bump into Diaz, the Texas defensive coordinator at the time.

"I knew they knew Caesar, so it was easy to create conversation," Banda said.

In addition, Banda sent out 150 letters to schools across the country asking for a job. He got zero offers from those letters. Only one school wanted him: Texas. So he found himself in Austin in 2012, working for Brown and Diaz.

"Talk about extremes," Banda said. "I went from a start-up program that had no money, my locker I shared with another player, maybe had a pair of shorts and bought my own shoes. Then you flip it over, the next spring you're at the University of Texas. It was insane." Banda worked long hours as a graduate assistant while attending graduate school, making next to nothing while trying to pay his bills. Bartending was out of the question.

To make matters more difficult, Brown fired Diaz two games into the 2013 season. Then everything started going downhill for Brown, too. Banda started to wonder whether he should quit.

"The last Mack Brown year was tough," Banda said. "It was hard fighting through that and not having coach [Diaz] there was hard for me. There were a lot of long nights and some struggles."

Banda set a goal to get two degrees, so he fought on. When Charlie Strong was hired in 2014, Diaz gave Banda one piece of advice: "I told him you've got to be a guy Charlie instantly leans on." Strong kept Banda on as a graduate assistant.

The following year, Banda got an opportunity to be a quality control coach for Diaz at Mississippi State. Diaz always felt a kinship with him because of their shared background (both took first jobs outside of coaching) and their shared defensive philosophies.

Mark Richt hired Ephraim Banda as his safeties coach at Miami just five years removed from his playing days at Incarnate Word. Andrea Adelson/ESPN

Once Diaz took the defensive coordinator job at Miami, he knew right away he needed one coach in particular on his staff: Banda. Diaz convinced Richt to hire Banda as safeties coach, giving Banda his first full-time assistant coaching job -- just five years removed from Incarnate Word.

"He is such a hard worker. He'd do anything," Diaz said. "He was willing to go the extra mile to do anything it took to help the players with their learning and understanding."

Call it good fortune. Call it good timing. Call it good work. Call it all three. Banda explains his rise this way: "Be loyal, make good decisions, surround yourself with the right people, be honest, and work hard."

Akina points to something else.

"It's very hard as a defensive backs coach at a young age to move as quickly as he's moved because it's such a critical position," he said. "If you make a mistake back there, it's points. People have to trust you. Mark Richt hired Ephraim on Manny Diaz's recommendation, and that says a lot for Ephraim and his perseverance and staying with it. He's got a bright future. I think his career is going to absolutely take off. I may be asking him for a job down the road."

Banda still has loans to pay off. He still drives his car from college, a Toyota Corolla. He still gets a kick out of those who are in awe over his nascent career. For Ephraim Banda, there has been no time to fully grasp the improbability of it all.

"People always say that," Banda said. "Maybe 20 years from now or whenever it's time for me to put up the whistle, I'll look back. Right now, I'm on a mission."