CEDAR FALLS — Jeremiah Johnson was practically groomed to be a football coach.
When he was young, Johnson’s dad Gary was a high school head coach with stops in Mankato, Kan., and Hiawatha, Kansas. During those formative years, Johnson rode buses to games. He attended practices, and he talked shop with his dad.
“I soaked it all up. It became part of who I am,” Johnson said.
Those hours of following his dad around the practice field has paid off for Northern Iowa’s defensive coordinator, who is entering his 12th season on head coach Mark Farley’s staff, the longest current tenured coach under Farley.
“Twelve years ... I don’t know,” Johnson answered when asked if he expected to stay so long.
“I know we really love it here,” continued Johnson, referring to his wife, Nicki, and their children, Lane and Drew. “To say I thought 12 years ago we’d still be here, I don’t know if we had that conversation. We just knew that we had an opportunity that was really good for us. Obviously, we’ve been pleased with how it’s turned out.
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“We’ve learned a ton, been around great kids and great coaches. It’s been a really good experience for our family. The Cedar Valley is as good a place in America for having a family, I think.”
Johnson joined UNI’s staff as a secondary coach and video coordinator, with his first season coming during the Panthers’ 12-1 season in 2007 that saw them advance all the way to the FCS playoff semifinals. That team included future NFLers Chad Rinehart and Brandon Keith.
“We were really good. I still talk to a lot of those guys that were on that team,” Johnson said.
Johnson was a solid high school football player, but a shoulder injury ended his chance to play collegiately.
But he couldn’t stay away from the game, either, while at Kansas, he met Jayhawk graduate assistant football coach Chris Klieman in 1998, and a friendship developed.
After spending a season at Wyoming as a graduate assistant/video coordinator in 2002, Johnson followed Klieman to Loras College in Dubuque, spending four seasons on the Duhawks’ coaching staff while also earning a master’s degree in athletic administration.
Johnson stayed an extra season at Loras after Klieman left for UNI in 2006, and then followed him a year later, joining another first-year Panther coach — Scott Frost.
He’s gradually worked his way up from video coordinator to recruiting coordinator and assistant defensive backs coach from 2009 to 2011. In 2012, he became the defensive backs coach, before being promoted to defensive coordinator/linebackers coach in 2013.
“He’s as good and loyal to this university as anybody who has came through here,” Farley said of Johnson. “JJ is tremendous because he remembers the stuff I forget. He can do everything with our defense.
“He’s worked his way up from a filmer to the position he is in now ... probably is the No. 1 guy on the staff sitting up there knowing how to get things done at UNI and get things done himself.”
Johnson laughs when told what Farley said about his forgetfulness.
“I was pretty fortunate that I was blessed with a great memory,” Johnson says. “So, I still write a lot of things down, but for the most part I can remember the things coach forgets from time to time.
“It depends on what we are working on. A lot of the time it might be something that we tried two or three years ago, and we didn’t like it. I’m like, ‘Coach, we did that and this is why it didn’t work.’ So, we either try to make it better or say it is not worth the time to get that in.
“Coach has seen a ton of football and had a lot of guys over the years that have worked for him. Everybody has unique ideas and all that stuff. I’m pretty good at remembering rules and trying to make things easy for the kids.”
That has been a focal point for Johnson this preseason. He returns a talented group, albeit one with little experience.
Up front Bryce Douglas, Rickey Neal Jr. and Hezekiah Applegate have played a ton and so have linebacker Duncan Ferch and safety A.J. Allen. A handful of others like cornerback Xavior Williams and lineman Seth Thomas have a year under their belts, but Johnson says challenges are ahead.
“Other than those guys, we are inexperienced,” Johnson said. “We have guys who have been in our program, and hopefully we can continue to make them better and keep this defense being one of the top three or four in this league.
“We lost Jared (Farley) who had started for 3 1/2 years and basically ran our defense on the field for that entire time. We lost an All-American in front of him in Adam Reth, and an All-American in Elijah Campbell behind him.
“We’ve got to try to find a way to get guys to compete at that level so that we don’t have a dropoff defensively.”