By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Over the last 20 years, Jeff Grimes has made coaching stops in seven different states in a cross-country tour that took him as far away as Boise, Idaho, Blacksburg, Va., and Provo, Utah.
            But, that strong lure to return to his Texas roots never left.
A Garland, Texas, native who earned four letters as an offensive tackle at UTEP (1987-90), Grimes is finally coming home as the offensive coordinator at Baylor.
            "It was a huge draw to come back to Texas," said the 52-year-old Grimes, who spent the last three years as the offensive coordinator at BYU. "A draw to Baylor, too. I grew up coming to church camps here in the summers, and I've been on this campus to watch football games. I grew up in the Baptist church, so I've always had a connection to Baylor, in some sense."
            Still, Grimes never would have made this move "if it wasn't to work for somebody that I really, really respect and have a liking for and somebody that I think I'll enjoy being with."
            Baylor head coach Dave Aranda fits that bill. The two were part of the staff at LSU in 2016-17, when Aranda was the defensive coordinator and Grimes was the offensive line coach under Les Miles and Ed Orgeron.
            "I respected what he did at LSU, not only as the defensive coordinator – and he certainly produced great defenses – but I also just enjoyed being around him every day," Grimes said. "He was a guy that the players trusted and respected. All of us did, too, as colleagues."
            Aranda says Grimes is a "true ball coach and a fundamental teacher of the game."
            "He coaches a physical offense built on explosive plays in both the pass and run game," Aranda said. "There is a strong identity in what he does. We will be building to that vision, and I know he will hold our staff and players accountable to that standard."
            A towering 6-fooot-7 man now, Grimes said UTEP took a chance on a "tall and kind of gangly" offensive lineman from Lakeview Centennial High School in 1986.
Head coach Bob Stull led an amazing collection of coaches at UTEP that included Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid (offensive line), future NFL head coaches Dirk Koetter (offensive coordinator) and Marty Mornhingwig (GA) and longtime NFL assistant Dave Toub (GA, strength coach), who is currently the Chiefs' assistant head coach and special teams coordinator.
            "I don't know that I knew then how good they were, but I knew we were winning and we turned around a program that was doing really poorly," Grimes said of his college coaches. "I knew my coaches coached me hard and were really demanding, but they cared about me, too. Andy Reid had that way of being able to yell at me and look at me with these intense eyes and just bore a hole right through my face. But because I knew he cared about me, and because I knew what he was talking about, it made me want to do better."
Grimes counts Reid and Koetter, currently the Atlanta Falcons' offensive coordinator, among an impressive list of mentors that also includes current Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall and legendary coach Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech.
            In a tip of the hat to Reid, Grimes' BYU offense used a trick play dubbed "Chiefs" to score the go-ahead touchdown in a 43-26 win over Houston last season when All-American quarterback Zach Wilson hit fullback/tight end Masen Wake with a shovel pass. Two weeks earlier, Patrick Mahomes had run the exact same play in a Chiefs victory.
"Like most coaches, I'm willing to copy a good play from anybody," Grimes said. "I texted (Reid) and said, 'I guess I should have asked your permission first.' He texted me back right away and said, 'Just glad it worked. Great job!'''
            Grimes, who graduated from UTEP in 1991 with a degree in education, chased his pro football dreams in training camp stints with the Los Angeles Raiders and World League of American Football's San Antonio Riders before starting his coaching career as offensive coordinator for two years at El Paso Riverside High School.
Jumping into the college ranks, Grimes was a graduate assistant at Rice and Texas A&M, where he worked alongside future NFL head coach Mike Sherman when he was helping coach the Aggies' offensive line. In his first full-time college position, he was the offensive line coach at Hardin-Simmons under Jimmy Keeling and offensive coordinator Alan Wartes, "who is still one of my best friends in the world."
            Jeff met his future wife, former A&M volleyball player Sheri Hermesmeyer-Grimes, through FCA camps while they were both in college. After Jeff talked "my wife into allowing me to be a football coach," Sheri listed all the bordering Texas states as potential landing sites.
            But, their first move out of the state was 1,400 miles away in Boise, Idaho, as the offensive line coach under Koetter at Boise State.
            "We had lived in Texas our whole lives and hadn't really ever been anywhere," Grimes said. "Long before the age of computers, we get out an actual map, a U.S. Road Atlas. Sheri looks at me and goes, 'Oh my gosh, Idaho borders Canada!' But, she's been great. We've been everywhere."
            Koetter hired Grimes as his O-line coach at Boise State "when I was a young guy that had no name and no real coaching experience," Grimes said. "When we went from Boise to Arizona State . . . there were many, many guys he could have brought with him, because he was in a different salary pool there than what he had at Boise. The fact that he brought me with him and stuck with me meant something to me."
            While he's made seven moves since then, working under eight different head coaches, Grimes said "the real hardware being my knowledge of the game came from working with (Koetter)."
            "The nuts and bolts of understanding how to game plan, how to build an offense, how to create balance," he said, "I have to say a lot of the way that I've gone about building an offense goes back to those roots."
            After stops at BYU and Colorado, Grimes joined Gene Chizik's staff at Auburn and helped the Tigers win the 2010 national championship with a 14-0 run that included beating No. 2 Oregon, 22-19, in the BCS National Championship Game.
            Returning to BYU as offensive coordinator three years ago, Grimes helped develop a high-powered offense that finished the 2020 season in the top 15 in 10 different statistical categories, including scoring (3^rd, 43.5 ppg), total offense (7^th, 522.2 ypg) and passing offense (8^th, 332.1 ypg). Ranked 13^th in the final regular-season AP poll, the Cougars finished 11-1 with a win over UCF in the Boca Raton Bowl.
            "Everybody talks about this year, and it was a great year," he said. "But this year was the result of the building blocks that had been laid in place over the previous two years."
Grimes helped 2-star recruit Brady Christensen develop into a consensus All-American offensive lineman, while quarterback Zach Wilson is a projected top-10 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft after a monster junior season at BYU.
            "Zach Wilson was a little punk freshman just coming out of high school, a squirrely kid that didn't look like much," Grimes said. "(Christensen) was a freshman who couldn't go through one scrimmage without having a false start. Our running back who ended up with over 1,000 yards this year (Tyler Allgeier) came to us a walk-on and didn't really do anything that first year.
            "My point is those guys weren't always that, they weren't 5-star recruits that showed up that way. They worked hard, they believed in our coaches and in the system, and they were developed, and they turned into something special."
            An offensive philosophy that "goes back to all those years" grooming as an assistant coach "kind of all came together for me now that I've had the opportunity to be the guy that's really directing all of it," Grimes said.
            Labeled RVO – Reliable Violent Offense – one of the main tenets of the Grimes offense is not beating yourself with turnovers, penalties or missed assignments.
"One of the things I'm most proud of with this team – yes, we had gaudy stats – but we also didn't turn the ball over very much (nine times in 12 games)," he said. "We were seventh in the country in fewest penalties per game (4.33). That says something about how you can be accountable and give yourself a chance to win by not screwing it up first."
The second piece is "playing with a violent, aggressive mindset," he said, "whether that's running the ball in a physical downhill manner, whether that's being aggressive in the way we throw the ball down the field, even in a situation where maybe people wouldn't expect us to."
            "Fourth-and-one, everybody thinks you're going to run the football, and that's a great time to run the football," Grimes said. "But, it also might be your best opportunity for a big play in the passing game. So, we're going to attack, and we'll line up every week and feel like we're going to be a team that's going to get after you."
            With Grimes coaching the tight end position, the rest of Baylor's offensive staff now includes Shawn Bell (quarterbacks), Justin Johnson (running backs), Chansi Stuckey (wide receivers) and Eric Mateos (offensive line), who worked with Grimes the last two seasons at BYU.
            "I'll always have some input with the offensive line, because that's what I've done my entire life," Grimes said. "But, (Mateos) is a great line coach. I know we need to, but we will see marked improvement in our offensive line with him."
            Jeff and Sheri have four children, daughters Bailey and Jada; and sons Garrison and Greydon.
            "You look up there (at the Allison Indoor facility), and you see Big 12 right there. That feels like home to me," Grimes said. "I fly into DFW Airport, and it feels like home when I put my feet on the tarmac when I walk off the plane. It smells like home and feels like home anytime I'm in Texas. Being back here was a big part of it."