Staff file photo / R. Michael Semple Youngstown State finished with a 6-6 record in 2019, including a 34-14 win over Duquesne at Stambaugh Stadium on Sept. 14. New head coach Doug Phillips is experiencing a unique first season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Doug Phillips was well aware that preparation was going to be an integral part of his job when he was hired as the Youngstown State football coach in February.

He just never realized he would have to be ready for one of the biggest pandemics in the last 100 years.

The first-time college head coach was just getting settled in at YSU when the coronavirus started to impact the United States. Yet, he was, indeed, prepared when schools, stores and all non-essential businesses in the state (including YSU) were shut down and a stay-at-home order was put in place.

“We were fortunate that we got together as a staff before the quarantine started, so we had a plan that if this would take its course, and we were in this mitigation and quarantine, we would be ready,” he said. “So, we’ve executed the plan that we started probably about three weeks ago.”

Phillips isn’t exactly sure what a “normal” day is as a college football head coach.

The 52-year-old was formerly the running backs coach at the University of Cincinnati, and his last head coaching job was at Salem High School (2001-2005). While he may be inexperienced as a collegiate head coach, he has a good grasp on how to handle the quarantined version.

Phillips and his coaching staff are executing a detailed plan that starts at 8 a.m. every morning. He and his assistant coaches check in on their players from 8 to 10 a.m. Each position coach calls his group of players to make sure the athletes are healthy and staying up-to-date with their online courses (there are no face-to-face classes at YSU during the quarantine).

From 10 a.m. to noon, the coaches take on recruiting duties, with each position coach being assigned a specific region on which to focus.

“That’s working within a 300-mile radius,” Phillips said. “Each of them have areas where they’re calling coaches, evaluating film, assessing film, ranking players on a board and deciding which players we’re going to recruit in the 2021 class.

“From 12 to 2, our coaches work on football — getting ready to teach, to prepare lessons to our kids. The challenge I had for our coaches was, ‘What do we want our kids to really know when they get back to us?'”

Just because Phillips and the staff can’t meet with players in person doesn’t mean teaching and coaching aren’t happening.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 2 to 4 p.m., coaches hold meetings with their position groups via Zoom, a remote conferencing service. Zoom allows coaches to see and speak to each of their players, along with sharing videos and football diagrams. With spring practices essentially canceled, spoiling Phillips’ first chance to watch and instruct his players on the field, he and the staff are installing offensive and defensive schemes through videos.

As coaches converse with their players, Phillips can drop in at any time. He has the ability to overhear several meetings at once by using multiple technological devices.

“I get to see and hear how our coaches teach. I get to see and hear how our players are responding to those coaches. That’s something I look forward to each and every day,” he said. “The one thing I love doing, and I told my coaches this when I hired them, is that I’m going to be in your meeting rooms daily.

“I love going to each and every room. I love hearing how our coaches teach, and I love hearing what our kids know. I want to see an active meeting room. I want to know what our kids know. It’s not about what we know as coaches, it’s about what our kids know.”

The Penguins should be staying sharp physically as well.

Phillips and YSU strength and conditioning coach Terry Grossetti have a plan in place for the limited equipment available, with gyms and most other workout areas closed. Grossetti said he sends out a training program on a daily basis that incorporates many of the same concepts he would be using if the players were in the weight room.

“You don’t necessarily need a lot of equipment to develop power, to develop speed,” Grossetti said. “A lot of those concepts that you’re going to be applying to the athletes are basically using their body weight anyway. You just have to find a way that they can do that in the privacy of their own home or at a local track, or yard or high school.

“That’s kind of the foundation of our program, building power or maintaining the power that we built over the winter in preparation for spring ball. Right now, the transition is definitely tough (as a trainer), so I just have to alter things a hair.”

Since Phillips can’t physically check to see if players are training, he has to have faith in their dedication.

He also made a grading scale, an “old Jim Tressel grading scale,” in his words, that asks a player if he’s training as national champion — in all areas of life.

“Then you have to trust the kids that they want to be the very best,” he said. “… Sometimes what you do when no one is looking is what determines how much success you’re going to have in life.”

As the weeks of the stay-at-home order pile up, so does the time Phillips and his staff put in.

The New Middletown native said he and his assistants are treating their duties similar to how they would if school was in session. They speak daily and, while their work may be done differently, it’s still being done.

“For us, it’s still a work day,” Phillips said. “We probably even work a little bit longer, by the time you get done with meeting with players and talking to them … It takes some time, the logistics of it.

“For us, it’s been business as usual. It’s just a different way of delivery. Instead of being in our offices, we’re doing it from our home bases.”