West Michigan Mayhem coach Matt Koch has passion for football and film

by Aaron Mueller | Kalamazoo Gazette

Thursday July 23, 2009, 8:58 AM

PARCHMENT -- Football has been a part of Matt Koch's life for as long as he can remember. It's in his blood.

And his passion for the game has produced great results for the West Michigan Mayhem. Since taking the head coaching job at the beginning of last season, Koch has guided the team to a 20-1 record, the only loss coming in last year's National Women's Football Association championship game.

His team is a perfect 9-0 this season in the Women's Football Alliance after its trouncing of Columbus in the first round of the playoffs. West Michigan will play the undefeated Philadelphia Liberty Belles Saturday at Vicksburg High School for a trip to the WFA championship game in New Orleans.

Koch's players are quick to credit the coach for taking the Mayhem to the next level.

"He bleeds football," said team captain Jennifer Plummer, this season's National Conference Defensive Player of the Year. "It's his passion. You can feel it. You know it. It gives you the extra drive."

Koch is the son of high school football coaching legend Jack Koch, who is in the Michigan High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame after a 35-year career at Parchment High School, Hackett Catholic Central and Kalamazoo Christian High School.

Koch learned the ins and outs of football from his father. He played quarterback for Parchment while his father was coach and later served as offensive coordinator with him at Hackett and Kalamazoo Christian.

"Pretty much everything that I do I model after him," Koch said. "I can remember being 5 years old, sitting on his lap and all I hear is, 'click, click.' That's the old rewind button from the reel-to-reel films. He studied film immaculately."

Koch has brought that attentiveness to the Mayhem. He and the team spend hours studying film and breaking down plays every week in order to be prepared on game day.

Lisa Luedtke, the starting free safety and four-year Mayhem veteran, said that Koch's film sessions have especially helped a defense that has only allowed 27 points all season.

"We're always told that offense has the advantage because they know the play, but we take away that advantage because we have the ability to recognize the play from watching films," she said. "There's nothing like seeing the look in a quarterback's eyes when you actually call out the play that they're about to run."

Koch first discovered professional women's football when he was coaching at Hackett and one of the Irish's assistant coaches, who was also involved with the Mayhem organization, invited him to film one of the practices.

"I've got to be honest. I was a skeptic of women's football," he said. "I was there 20 minutes filming, and I shut the camera off and got off the bleachers and I said 'sign me up.' And I saw right away that no matter what gender it was, it was football. And I wanted to be involved."

Koch said that one of the biggest challenges of coaching women's football is teaching rookies the game.

"We get a lot of them that come out who have never played the game. They don't know what the rules are, don't know what the line of scrimmage is," he said. "So we really have to start from square one every year with the rookies. But it's been neat to watch people learn and improve and grow to love the game."

Koch is demanding of his players, especially at practice, but they respect him for it.
"He demands a certain level of play from everybody," Plummer said. "You can build off of his intensity. The discipline, the hard work come as second nature. You don't want to let him down."

Koch hopes to one day coach at the high school level again during the Mayhem's offseason.

"Full-time football year-round would not bother me at all," he laughed.

The only thing he may enjoy more would be to suit up himself.

"Every day at practice he tells us how jealous he is of us because he wishes he was on the field," Luedtke said