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NILES CHARTER TOWNSHIP — Jeff Miller had been patiently waiting for the right opportunity to join the head coaching ranks following a 20-year run as an assistant in Elkhart.

The opportunity was realized this spring when he was named head coach of the Brandywine football team. Miller succeeds Justin Kinzie, who was 9-22 in three seasons as head coach. Brandywine has not won more than four games since 2019, when the Bobcats finished 9-1, including the school’s first undefeated regular season.

“You can tell that (the players) are ready,” he said. “They just want to win, they want to be successful and we want to do that with them. We want to do that for them. I’ve been really encouraged. We’ve had more kids every single day. Whoever’s there, we’re going to coach them up and give them everything that we’ve got because that’s the only thing we ask them to do. If we worry about that in everything we do, eventually all of the winning and all that stuff’s going to take care of itself. 

“We’re not going to chase outcomes, we’re not going to chase wins. We’re going to worry about how we approach everything and how we do it and eventually those outcomes will be where we want because that’s sustainability. That’s building a program from the bottom up and that’s what we have to do.”

Miller graduated from Elkhart Central, where he played for Indiana Football Hall of Famer Tom Kurth. From there, he went to Indiana University to pursue a teaching degree while helping coach the football team. 

“(Teaching) is the perfect job for me,” he said. “They say if you love what you’re doing, you’re never gonna work.”

Miller returned to Elkhart in 2005, where he spent the past 20 years as both a teacher and an assistant coach at Elkhart Memorial. 

The size of the two schools may be different – Miller said Memorial’s Class of 2025 had 850 students – but even so, he feels the two schools are still similar in their diversity.

“It’s very similar to Elkhart in the respect that there’s a mix of different kinds of people here, there’s just less of them here,” he said. “We have some farm-type kids, we have athletes and kids from all sorts of backgrounds, just less of them. It wasn’t a culture shock.”

When the Brandywine position opened up, Miller consulted his “circle,” which consists of 32 football and track coaches he has built relationships with over the years and made the decision to lead the Bobcats on the gridiron.

“I feel more prepared than most because I’ve been coaching officially for 20 years and even longer with helping at IU,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot from people I’ve worked with and I’m excited to be at a place that wants to win and is excited about football. I’m applying all of those lessons and learning more and seeing what works.”

Miller has received support from coaches all over Michiana. Niles Head Coach Scot Shaw, who Miller worked for when Shaw helmed Elkhart Memorial from 2015 to 2019, has been an invaluable resource for him.

“The coaches network has been welcoming, open and supportive,” he said. “People are willing to have a phone conversation for two hours or just talk ball if they have nothing to do. So just talking to him about what the Niles area is like and everybody in southern Michigan who I know says ‘ I think (Brandywine) can win there, they’ve won there before. I just think it’s a really good situation.”

Embracing Bobcat Nation

It did not take Miller very long to understand and appreciate the district’s importance to the community. He praised the Brandywine community for its support of the football program. 

“It’s such a cool setup, you come off Bell and the road just dead ends right into the school,” Miller said. “Because this is a township and not the city, the school is really the center of the community, which is really cool… From the superintendent to the principal, AD and other coaches, everybody is swimming in the same direction. There just seems to be a lot of support for the kids and the programs and that’s exciting.”

‘Happy, healthy, high-performance’

Miller is tasked with rebuilding the Bobcats football program from the ground up and summed up his program philosophy as “Happy, healthy and high-performance.”

“For our coaches, for our kids and for everybody who’s in our program, we’re trying to develop happy, healthy, high-performance student athletes who grow up to become lifelong community leaders. That’s our mission,” he said. “I think that happy, healthy, high-performance covers everything. We want to develop kids and teach them how to be happy and how to work through those mental spaces when they’re not happy. You’re going to have periods where there are peaks and valleys but the valleys aren’t going to last and we have to teach them how to get out of those.”

Miller said that his program will put an emphasis on speed training in order to cultivate healthy athletes on the gridiron.

“We’re a sprint-based football program,” he said. “We’re not into 1980s traditional conditioning. We are focused on speed because speed is the tide that lifts all boats; speed stacked on top of speed can build speed endurance. Endurance will never build speed. If you think of a distance runner and what they look like when they’re running versus a sprinter, a sprinter has big front side mechanics and small backside mechanics. Distance Runners are the opposite, so we’re trying to build sprinters, not guys who are really good at running half speed.”

When it comes to the high performance aspect of the program, Miller expects players to be the best versions of themselves as they represent Brandywine both on and off the field.

“High performance is everywhere. In the classroom, as a son, as a sibling,  as an employee, as a player, as a leader in the school,” he said. “One thing I want kids to understand is that you don’t have to be here, you’re choosing to be here. Because you’re choosing to be and part of probably the most visible sport, you’re a leader, whether you like it or not. With all the spoils also comes responsibility. So that’s our mission for our program. It’s happy, healthy and high performance for everybody.”

‘Let them play football’

When it comes to what the Bobcats will look like on the field, Miller said the offense will be “different” from the flexbone offense utilized the past three years. 

“The offense will be different,” he said. “I’m a fan of not overthinking it. We’ll get the ball to our athletes in space and let them play football and make us look like we know what we’re doing. Defensively, we’ll probably have some variation of four-front where you can bring more guys into the box if you need to stop the run. You can have multiple safeties/linebackers or hybrid guys out in coverage if they’re throwing the ball. But again, it’s going to be simple so that they can play football. I think the worst thing we can do as coaches is make the kids think. Paralysis by analysis – if they’re just standing there thinking about what to do, they’re not actually playing football. So make it fun, make it simple and let the kids play football.

“This is still a game. We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we want to win and be successful but at the same time, when it comes down to it in the grand scheme of life, this is a game and if it’s not fun, what are we doing?”

As offseason workouts continue into the summer, Miller’s goal heading into fall practice is to build program numbers. Speed training takes place from 9 to 9:30 a.m. Monday and Wednesday at the middle/high school and football practice from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Monday and from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Readers can follow the football program at BWBobcatBall on Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter).

“We’re trying to build numbers and get people excited about football again,” Miller said. “They’ve been successful before but for whatever reason, they haven’t been very recently. I’m not focused on the past. I think people who focus on the past are depressed because they’re always thinking about the past instead of the present. I’m focused on today and moving forward and trying to make us better.”