5 questions with Purdue football tight ends coach Seth Doege
WEST LAFAYETTE − Like Purdue offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, tight ends coach Seth Doege was a record-setting quarterback during his playing days at Texas Tech.
His post-college career included a stint with the Atlanta Falcons and the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders before getting into coaching.
Doege's start came as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green, where he moved up to coaching receivers and special teams from 2016-18 before going to USC to become offensive quality control analyst for the Trojans, which he did for two seasons before being named tight ends coach in 2021.
After three seasons in Los Angeles, Doege spent last season at Ole Miss.
Now he's in West Lafayette, reuniting with Harrell, who he played alongside at Texas Tech and worked with at USC.
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Q: How much will the tight ends be used in offensive coordinator Graham Harrell's system?
A: Everybody that comes from (coach Mike) Leach's tree, they've all put their twist and spin on what the (air raid) philosophy is and kind of the scheme in general. With us, we felt like the tight end gives us an advantage. If you look back at USC, our final year there, I bet 90 percent of the time, we were in 11 (one tight end, one running back) or 12 (one running back, two tight ends) personnel. It might be more than that. I can't really recall the exact number. The tight end, we utilize him a lot. Depending on how that skillset is is how he's targeted. We're going to play with the tight end to give us an advantage in the run game, but depending on whether we target him or not in the pass game is kind of on his skill set.
Q: What do you like about the current tight ends group you have at Purdue?
You've got to give (former Purdue tight ends coach, current Louisville tight ends coach) Ryan Wallace a lot of credit because he put the room together. It is a very talented room. I've been very pleased with what I've seen. Now it's my job to make sure we get everything we can out of those guys and make sure those guys are NFL dudes for us. I do think there's some NFL caliber type of talent in this room. Garrett Miller, to me, is an absolute freak from a skillset level. Obviously he's coming off an injury, but he's attacking his rehab every day which I've been super proud of. This dude is in our training room more than anyone on our team trying to get back as fast as possible. You know he has a vision. You know he has goals. He sees opportunity. We talked to Garrett a lot about what he can do in this offense. ... He can be a guy we feature, especially down the field with his speed and skillset. I do think us being a little more simple than they were in the past gives him an advantage to play faster and more freely and not have to think as much. ... Go to Paul (Piferi). Paul has a lot of experience, too. Right now Paul is weighing 256, but he is still moving like he is 235. In our mat drills, if he didn't have to sit out one rep to kind of catch his breath, he would've dominated the entire team in wins. He's kind of competing at a whole other level. Obviously Paul is extremely smart so there's not one thing he messes up. Then you've got the two youngers Drew Biber and Max Klare who both have shown glimpses of being very explosive type players you get fired up about and both of them are going after each other.
Q: One guy you didn't mention is incoming freshman George Burhenn, who is not on campus yet. How important was it to keep him committed to Purdue after Jeff Brohm's staff left for Louisville?
A: The first time I met him, it was a unique vibe with George. When that happens, it takes quite a bit of time to create a relationship and create trust. For whatever reason, George and I we vibed together really well the moment we met each other. George's skillset is exactly what I want when I evaluate tight ends. Long, athletic and very good in space and obviously willing to block and have some physicality to him. ... He was committed here for a long time. I think he had a really strong relationship with the old staff. We had to do a really good job of developing a relationship with him and showing him how we were going to utilize his skillset in a very small period of time. We spent a lot of time with him, as much as we could.
Q: You've mentioned three different roles for the tight end position. What are those and how do you evaluate guys to fit into one of those or multiples of those?
A: Both inside slot positions, whether it be the right and the left and then the inside, or middle of the three, you have to learn how to play in space. In our offensive pass game, there's a lot of option routes. There's a lot of feel. Then you've got to be tough because there's a lot of crossing routes so you're running in with your head kind of spinning. You don't know what's in front of you or who is waiting on you. Then you've got to bang with linebackers and safeties and really talented nickels. To have the skillset to be able to manipulate space, run, catch the ball and have something about you to where you can settle over the middle and know you're going to get your head knocked off and still catch the football. There's a lot of that I like about George and the guys we have coming back.
Q: You were a quarterback. How did you transition into coaching tight ends and how much did you have to learn about the position when you started coaching it?
A: I transitioned to tight ends at USC. My first three years in the profession I coached wide receivers. The biggest transition to me was not necessarily teaching them how to run a route or how to create separation, how to get off a press, being disciplined in your route depth and the fundamentals of catching the football and running after the catch. It was more learning how to create fundamentals in blocking in the core pass protecting stuff. I had a unique opportunity when I did transition to tight ends that I had a guy who is now the Stanford O-line coach (Viane Talamaivao) was a QC (quality control coach) and he played at USC. I leaned on him a lot to create my fundamental list for how I coach those guys when it comes to blocking and striking at the point of attack and creating the movement. We did a good job working together and I carried that with me.
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: 5 questions with Purdue football tight ends coach Seth Doege
