You Don’t Know Dickey

Aggie fans have a lot of good reasons to be excited about incoming head coach Jimbo Fisher. They are just as understandably excited about Fisher’s OC hire, Darrell Dickey recently of Memphis. Along with a pedigree of solid offenses across the country and a twelve-page resume, Dickey is known for his recruiting acumen.

But what do we know about our new OC? GBH took the time to read his Wikipedia page and google some stuff, and it turns out his career has been fascinating. Here’s the abridged version:

LOL SENIOR QBS ARE LIKE UNICORNS Darrell Dickey played quarterback for Kansas State under his father, head coach Jim Dickey, meaning that nepotism sometimes is good and also that there is historic record of a time when Kansas State was not coached by Bill Snyder. Darrell led the Wildcats to their first bowl game in school history, and is still the only Wildcat to lead the team in passing yards and total offense for four consecutive seasons.

GRAD ASSISTANT OF THE YEAR This is not Dickey’s first time on the Texas A&M payroll. After an unproductive two years as an undrafted free agent for the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints, Dickey was hired into the college football coaching world as a graduate assistant under Jackie Sherrill in 1985. His impact was immediate as his work doing whatever it is that graduate assistants do was clearly the final piece for the Aggies to win their first SWC title in a decade.

WE KEPT YOUR ROOM JUST THE WAY IT WAS In 1988 Memphis promoted then-RB-coach Darrell Dickey to offensive coordinator. 24 years later - after eight other stops in his coaching career - Memphis again hired Darrell Dickey to be their offensive coordinator. In 2017 the Memphis Tigers ranked 4th in the country in total offense and yards per play, and 2nd in the country in points per game.

THIRD IN THE SEC Texas A&M will be the third SEC stop in Dickey’s career. At Mississippi State he coached QBs and RBs, and at LSU he coached a thing called TE.

205 PONYPOWER In his only season as OC at SMU he helped lead the Mustangs to their first winning season since the death penalty - and he did it without purchasing a single gold Trans Am.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY Dickey has held only one official* head coaching position, leading UNT from 1998 to 2006. In that span the Mean Green had a 26 consecutive conference game win streak, 4 straight Sun Belt conference titles, and back-to-back national rushing leaders (Patrick Cobbs 2003, Jamario Thomas 2004). Dickey followed that streak with two seasons of 5 combined wins and was fired, but following his firing UNT named their new practice facilities after Dickey as a tribute to his accomplishments.

* Dickey was named interim head coach of Memphis after Justin Fuente left for Virginia Tech in 2015 and went 0-1 coaching the Tigers as they got dickey-punched by Auburn in the Birmingham Bowl.

INTO EVERY LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL Darrell Dickey once coached under Dennis Franchione.