USFL 2022: Kirby Wilson ready to lead the Pittsburgh Maulers

By RJ Young
FOX Sports Writer

When Kirby Wilson takes the field as head coach of the USFL's Pittsburgh Maulers on April 17 in prime time, his first step patrolling the sideline at Protective Stadium will be symbolic of the many he took to get there.

Wilson has been in coaching for nearly 40 years, but this is his first shot to be a professional head coach, despite being an NFL assistant for more than two decades, winning two Super Bowl rings and coaching Pro Football Hall of Fame running backs Curtis Martin, Edgerrin James and Emmitt Smith, among others.

His wife and kids will be in the stands for a moment Wilson has been working toward since he took his first coaching job in 1985 at a community college in Pasadena, California. He wanted to give them this moment as much as he wanted to give himself the chance to run a professional football team the way he thinks it should be run.

"I just decided it was bigger than me," Wilson said.

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Across the sideline from Wilson on April 17 will be Tampa Bay Bandits head coach Todd Haley, who became an NFL offensive coordinator after 10 years as a position coach and earned the chance to be head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs for three seasons before he ended up on the same coaching staff as Wilson as the offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

At the NFL’s Pittsburgh franchise, Wilson and Haley worked for Mike Tomlin, a man who has not endured a losing season as a head coach, on what Wilson called "one of the greatest coaching staffs I've ever been around from top to bottom."

In 2008, the Steelers won the Super Bowl with a coaching staff that included offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau and defensive backs coach Ray Horton. Horton’s son, Jarren, is now the Maulers’ defensive coordinator.

"The No. 1 thing I took from Coach Tomlin was consistency," Wilson said. "He is the same. He's never too high, never too low. He's the same. I took that from him. And I've kind of ran with it because that's something that players strive to be — consistent. 

"And what is consistency? It’s doing something right, the same way, every time."

Teaching the game, fundamentally, is one of Wilson’s strengths, as evidenced by what many of his players have achieved dating to his time as running backs coach at Iowa State.

When Cyclones tailback Troy Davis rushed for more than 2,000 yards and finished as a Heisman finalist in back-to-back seasons, Wilson was his coach. When the Tampa Bay Bucs won their first Super Bowl behind power running from Michael Pittman and Mike Alstott, Wilson was their coach.

When Adrian Peterson led the league in carries (327) and rushing yards (1,485) for Minnesota at age 30, Wilson was his coach. When the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs finished runner-up for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year with 1,150 yards (4.8 per rush), Wilson was his coach.

Yet even with all those men having played for him, the most Wilson will allow is that he’s an expert running backs coach.

"I'm an expert because of what I've learned from those men," he said.

Wilson’s ability to recognize quality at the running back position — and, by association, on the offensive line — is reason enough to pay special attention to the Maulers’ ground game.

The Maulers selected an all-Big Ten backfield, with former Michigan RB De’Veon Smith and former Wisconsin RB Garrett Groshek, and combined it with an offensive line that screams smash-mouth football.

USFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations and Super Bowl-winning fullback Daryl Johnston told me that he thinks the Maulers roster is stout and believes Wilson represents what the USFL stands for: an opportunity to achieve a long-held dream. 

"I think that he's going to be good not only for the Pittsburgh Maulers and the USFL," Johnston said, "but I think he's going to be really, really good in the community of Birmingham, Alabama, because he's going to bring some real-world wisdom to some of these opportunities for these guys."

With training camp underway, Wilson has turned his attention to his first opponent, with earnest preparation for Haley’s Bandits. Wilson, who overlapped with Haley on Tomlin’s Steelers staff for two seasons, joked about what he expects from the Bandits in their first game in the USFL.

"I think the only kind of competitive advantage that we might have is I'm a little bit quicker and a little bit faster than Todd in the 40[-yard dash]," Wilson said. "So that's the only advantage we might have."

I laughed at that, but Wilson was quick to praise Haley’s fearlessness as a head coach and playcaller.

"Todd is one of the more creative coaches I've ever been around, and I've told a lot of people in our profession that one thing I've always admired about Todd is that he's not afraid. He's not afraid. He's not conservative [in playcalling]. And Todd is not afraid to take a chance and an opportunity on something that he believes in."

It won’t surprise Wilson to look down at the final stat sheet and see Haley threw the ball all over the yard, either.

"He's gonna throw 80 times," Wilson joked. "He's not going to run the ball one time."

Even there, you can see how a running backs coach is looking to an offensive coordinator, asking him to trust his guy with the ball in his hands. 

When I mentioned that Wilson is one of the greatest running backs coaches in the history of the sport, he waved that off and directed my attention back to the players. He told me they ran it, not him.

But that’s who Wilson is: the man who fights for his men, the man other men trust, the man who accepts all blame and little praise.

We call that a head coach.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.