For a college kid, transforming from living under your parents' or guardians' roof to living on your own can sometimes be daunting. For Auburn players, the pressure of playing at the highest level of college football and all that goes with it can be overwhelming. They need someone to talk to and trust when things are going wrong.
Enter Wesley McGriff. The longtime coach's rough exterior hides one of the game's kindest hearts. You can see that in his players' eyes when asked about their relationship with Crime Dawg, his nickname, reveals this.
"Coach Crime, it's hard to look at him as a coach — because you know everything he says comes from love," JC Hart said. "Everything he says. Like, if he's yelling at you, you're not really gonna get down because you know he's trying. He's doing it for a reason."
That sentiment is echoed throughout the Tigers' secondary and team. It's part of his becoming a mentor to these young men who come from all kinds of different backgrounds. It's also something Hugh Freeze challenges all his coaches to do when working for him.
"Coach Freeze charges us with is to capture the heart and minds of our players, and he just doesn't mean on the field," McGriff said. "And if you're in your office, and your players are not coming by to see you, something's wrong. So you've got to forge that relationship, and it's really, really critical that you be that mentor because they're going to listen to somebody. And you'd rather them listen to you than some random person, so that's really critical in this day and age."
When Crime isn't coaching, his smile lights up the room. He's been one of the top recruiters for a long time now and has greatly influenced the classes that Freeze and his staff are starting to bring in. After conversing with him, you can sense why recruits and their parents trust him when he speaks, knowing that he isn't interested in just helping a football player but a man as well.
That's significant in the new college game.
"These young men are away from home, and it's bigger than football," McGriff said. "It's about life. Right now, the landscape of college football is changing, and so these guys need more mentoring, more advice from coaches more than anything."
Jerrin Thompson, the transfer from Texas, wasn't familiar with Crime until he arrived on campus. Charles Kelly did most of the safety's recruiting after he hit the transfer portal. It didn't take long for Thompson to realize the impact Crime would have.
"When I got here, I kinda grew closer to him," Thompson said. "He's a people person. I really like Coach Crime. I like how he coaches; he's tough on you, he wants the best and he's going to coach you hard – that's what you want in a coach."
It was almost not this way. After being demoted to an off-field position in the middle of last season due to some controversy within the coaching staff, Crime was ready to take an offer from Texas A&M as the Aggies' defensive backs coach. Freeze didn't want to lose one of his top assistants, and by fortune, Zac Etheredge resigned for a job with the Houston Cougars, opening up an on-field position for Crime again.
No one is benefitting from that more than the players under McGriff's watch.
"I'm a firm believer that the better relationship you have with your players, the harder you can coach them," he said. "And I think that the better you can remind them that I'm a human being coaching football, a lot of players don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. So, having that relationship, being a mentor to them away from the game, it's huge."
