CORVALLIS — The hallway toward JaMarcus Shephard’s office is lined with laminated plaques honoring Oregon State football players in the NFL: Brandin Cooks, Johnny Hekker and Nahshon Wright, to name a few.
Current players wait in the lobby for assistant coaches to finish up their staff meeting. But one of the offices is dark, appears untouched, and is not likely to be used even once that meeting ends. It belonged to defensive coordinator Lance Guidry.
After less than a week since his hire was announced by the team, the former Miami assistant Guidry is leaving OSU for the same job at Memphis. He is the second recently hired Beavers assistant to unexpectedly bail on Shephard in the last month for a presumably better-paying job.
Inoke Breckterfield — whose name is immortalized in the facility as one of OSU’s all-time great defensive players — left for Utah. His coaching nameplate has already been taken down from outside his very brief time in an OSU office.
The typically energetic Shephard had tired eyes on Monday. Seated in his office overlooking Reser Stadium, he expressed gratitude that the transfer portal window was coming to a close soon, and determination that his program would weather the storm of losing multiple assistant coaches in this moment.
The Oregonian/OregonLive sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Shephard. Readers can find part one of our conversation here, and the rest below, edited for length and clarity.
Ryan Clarke: It’s a never-ending wave of challenges in your business, but how have you navigated the challenge of losing two assistant coaches to other jobs right after they started?
JaMarcus Shephard: I mean, it’s really not much different than the players. I want guys here who want to be here. That’s what I focus on, and making sure that I don’t lose the integrity of what was the whole intent of the guys that we’re gonna bring into this program. And it’s that they be elite human beings first. I’m not gonna bring people in this program that I feel like are gonna embarrass Oregon State, this staff, themselves or myself. I just don’t feel like I have to rush, you know? I’ve identified the people that are next up on the list before any of this even happened. So, now it’s just a matter of making that final decision. I think that we’re in a great spot when it comes to that piece of it. I have great people on this staff. People want to come work with me because I have good relationships with people across the country.
Do you plan to hire a new defensive coordinator, or keep that internal with who’s already here?
I can’t comment on that.
A lot of young talent returning on the defensive side of the ball, particularly in the secondary. What is your impression of that group?
I think we’ve got a great young defense right now that I’m excited about what they’re going to do. I’ve already warned our offense that they’re about to get their butts whipped this spring by our defense. And I’m excited to see what those young DB guys can do. They’ve got some work to do because they haven’t been in the spotlight as much. And so, we’re gonna put them in the spotlight now. It’ll find you, okay? And in the moments when you don’t prepare for the spotlight, it’ll find you regardless. So, I’m just trying to help prepare them now. So that when the spotlight’s on, they’re ready to play at their best. Really excited about where we’re at, especially in that secondary. I think we’ve got some really good pieces in the secondary.
Aiden Sullivan is a guy coming back at the linebacker spot who could captain your defense. What have you seen from him?
I think that linebacker room is a good group that clicks well together. I think they’ve got a good relationship with each other. It’s their turn. Next man up. Let’s get after it. I started my career coaching the defensive backs and on the defensive side of the ball. So, I think that in that linebacker room, we’ve got a bunch of really good talent in that linebacker room. They’re hungry to show what they’re capable of.
You’re obviously someone who relates well with people and is a communicator, but so much of what is happening for you right now is transactional. How badly are you itching to get out in the community and start selling the vision of this program in more personal ways than you’ve been able to?
Well, I don’t necessarily see it as selling. I mean, it’s really just delivering it. It’s funny because I’ve sat in this room where we’re at now and I’ve said to these parents, ‘How do you know that what I’m saying, I’m gonna be able to bring it to fruition?’ How do I know that? How do you know? And it’s it’s really because it’s what I’ve been saying my whole career. It’s never been transactional for me. This whole experience as a collegiate coach has been about transformation. Transforming young men’s lives into the life that they see for themselves for the long haul. You come walking in the halls already, our athletic director Scott Barnes said it’s good to see a lot of smiling faces and whatnot walking through the halls.
For sure. The energy seems more positive.
And you can have fun, but we’ve also got to win. We’ve got to teach them how to be winners. And not just on Saturdays, but to win in all things in life, you know? I’m in it, okay? I’m an example. I am winning life. Nobody can tell me different. I am winning at life, okay? And if people knew my story, and for me to be sitting right here where I am right now, it’s like, no, these two things cannot happen. (Laughs) And so, I try to win every day, every single day. We’ve got to get these guys to win every day.
That is something I wanted to ask you about. How does your story as someone who grew up with food insecurity, wondering where his next meal might come from, shape your desire to positively impact young men’s lives?
You know what? Every school that I’ve ever coached at, the players are complaining about the food. (Laughs) Every single school. One of the places I was at, we had crab legs, we had steak, lobster tail. And players wouldn’t eat it. They wouldn’t touch it. But what you need to understand is, no place and no situation is perfect. It’s about being able to go out there and have grit through the imperfection that life gives you. You need to expect that every day is going to present a challenge for you, some type of adversity for you. Every single day. How are you going to respond to it?
That, to me, is at the essence of these young people’s lives. With the advent of this transfer portal and the NIL, rev share thing that we’re doing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy for them. They deserve it. And it’s not their fault. A bunch of grown men and women got in a room somewhere, probably in Indianapolis, and they finally signed off on saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna let these kids do this.’ Then everybody wants to get mad at the kids because they’ve been told they’re allowed to do it. But at the same time, I think we’re teaching them that they don’t have to go through adversity as much.
I didn’t get my first car until I graduated college and got a job and was able to go buy that first car. Some of these kids are driving around in some really nice cars. And that’s okay. But how did I get around? How do you be resourceful in life, when all this is over? What do you do when you and your wife are actually getting into an argument? Do you go get in the transfer portal and get a divorce?
Right. There are certainly life lessons that apply to their situation.
We’re teaching them right now to never deal with adversity. I’m gonna help our players be able to handle that the right way. I always say this: How you do anything is how you do everything. So, if you can handle that adversity here, going through this portal situation, you can go through, ‘Hey, my rent needs to be paid, My mom is sick. How do I help her with this?’ You’re gonna have some adversity out there on Saturdays when Texas Tech is here in Corvallis. It’s 3rd and 7 and we’ve got to get a stop to win the game. You’ll be able to handle that adversity. And it all goes hand in hand. If you don’t clean your room properly, make your bed, it’s just showing laziness. And that laziness is going to show up out there on a football field.
This institution has been through its share of adversity, too. Things completely out of its own control. That has left a lot of fans feeling cynical about the future of the football program. What would you say to them?
Well, this is this college football. There’s nothing to me that I’m cynical about with college football. Guess what? You know what’s cynical? When college football is over with and you gotta watch everything else, and there’s no more games coming up. We should be excited, man. We should be overjoyed. We should be fired up. We should have an intensity about us, a love, a passion, a desire to enjoy college football at all levels. My college receiver coach just won the national championship in Division III as the head football coach at University of Wisconsin-River Falls. And I was super excited for him. It’s college football at its purest.
No matter the situation that we’re in right now as a program, we’re not about to sit back here and talk about all the problems. Let’s worry about solutions, okay? Let’s go win some games. Let’s fill the stands up. So then, guess what? When some representative comes by here and sees, oh, shoot, Oregon State, their stands are filled every single game. You want to make it to a bigger Pac-12 or something else? You make sure the stands are filled. Make sure we’ve got a bunch of good players on our roster so that we can keep winning.
People need to understand: this place is respected around the country. When I started calling around asking people, ‘Hey, what do you think about going to Oregon State?’ They’re like, ‘Yes, that’s a great place, Shephard. That is a great place to go.’ I couldn’t be more grateful to be here. I hope the people that love this place and cherish this place are grateful that we get a good program that is gonna get a chance to go out there and showcase that.
Maybe this is pie in the sky, but one thing people have brought up on message boards and social media is the idea of pursuing partnerships with Nvidia and Jensen Huang. What do you think about that?
(Speaking into phone) Jensen, if you ever want to talk football with me, I’m all in, okay? I’m all in.
He’s not listening. Probably.
No, it’s been fun to really do some research and get to know his company. We had a few folks from (Nvidia) already in the building, talking to them about ideas we’ve had and how we can collaborate and utilize some of the things that they do to make our process easier. Make the processes here a lot more seamless. The biggest problem sometimes is coaches, they want to hold everything in. They don’t want people to get ahold of their information. And that’s one of the biggest fears of them. I’ve told some of their representatives that, hey, I’m ready to open up the doors, open up the floodgates, and allow our program to be — not the guinea pig — but to be the first program to really utilize this technology in AI to really push the envelope and help us with our processes and whatnot.
I think they (BVR ST CO) have an idea and a concept that they are wanting us to help them with, and we’re gonna try our best to help them with it. Hopefully that gives us a good chance to partner with (Nvidia). At the end of the day, it’ll be beneficial to us regardless. Whatever Jensen chooses to do, it’ll be beneficial for us.
But certainly you see how one individual can change the whole trajectory of a football program. I mean, you’re seeing it at Texas Tech. You’re seeing it from that team that’s in this same state that we’re in. One person has pretty much changed the trajectory of that program. And I hate to say it, but it wasn’t like they all started to become better coaches over there. It wasn’t like they all of a sudden became better evaluators of talent over there. And it wasn’t like all of a sudden they became better at developing. The acquisition and investment piece of it, that’s what changed. And so, I’m all for it.
I’m married to an OSU engineering alum. She feels this way, but I think that whole ‘spirit of innovation’ is something that a lot of people in this community are incredibly proud of.
Talking to Pat Reser — and I’ve said this multiple times — she was great when I talked to her. She just sees this place as a place of excellence, and I couldn’t agree more. You start to get around more, you start to realize this love of excellence that has been obtained here. And so, why not absorb some of that excellence into the football program or into the athletics programs as well? I mean, baseball has a level of excellence that is pretty damn impressive. People know when you come and play baseball against this Oregon State team, you better have your bats ready. And wrestling, man, thoroughly enjoyed seeing it in the wrestling program. Oregon State has had that in football, too. People have been terrified to come play in Reser. It’s a great venue, man.
Read part one of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Q&A with JaMarcus Shephard here.