Coleman putting mental focus, preparation at the forefront in 2024

INDIANAPOLIS — Bret Bielema has turned the trip from Champaign to Indianapolis for Big Ten media days into a key part of the annual event.

The Illinois coach makes the drive the day before he’s slated to speak and takes the Illini’s players representing the program with him.

The roughly 2 hours together allows Bielema to pepper his players with questions they might field from the conference media.

Monday’s trip included a specific question for Seth Coleman. Bielema told the veteran outside linebacker he might be asked about playing for a third different position coach this season. (Spoiler alert: Coleman was, in fact, asked a variation of that question on Tuesday afternoon).

Bielema hired Clint Sintim in March to coach outside linebackers after Charlie Bullen left Illinois to return to the NFL after a single season in Champaign. Bullen himself was hired in January 2023 after Kevin Kane followed Ryan Walters to Purdue to become the Boilermakers’ defensive coordinator.

Coleman was quick to correct Bielema’s question, though.

Sintim isn’t just his third position coach in three seasons. He’s the fifth in Coleman’s six years in Champaign after working with Austin Clark in 2019 and Jimmy Lindsey in 2020. The only time he had the same position coach in consecutive seasons was when Kane was hired in 2021 on Bielema’s initial staff.

“My position coaches, they transitioned because they were good,” Coleman said. Clark jumped from Lovie Smith’s staff to the Miami Dolphins and is now their defensive line coach.

“They went to higher roles,” Coleman continued. “From that, I see how good of a time I’ve had with them.”

Coleman has also been able to fine-tune his game working with so many different position coaches. They all brought different ideas to Illinois — different techniques and different ways to teach them.

Coleman learned.

“I take little nuggets from each one of them,” he said.

Sintim’s influence has come at the perfect time for Coleman. The new Illinois outside linebackers coach parlayed a successful career at Virginia into being a second-round pick in the 2009 NFL draft. He played two seasons for the Giants before multiple ACL injuries cut his career short and propelled him into coaching.

That’s the level Coleman wants to reach.

“I talk to Coach Sintim about how it is to be a pro,” Coleman said. “He was a high-round pick. He told me it’s all about the mental. Football is like 10 percent physical. It’s all about the mental, how you prepare and how you do things. That’s what I’ve learned from him so far, and I continue to keep learning from him every day.”

That approach is something Coleman started to grasp better at the end of the 2023 season. The 6-foot-5, 245-pound outside linebacker went without a sack through the first six games of the season. Then came a breakout performance at Maryland with three, and his six total sacks by the end of the season helped him earn All-Big Ten honorable mention status for a second straight year.

Adjusting his mental approach and preparation in the second half of the season was the difference maker.

“I needed to mentally have that fortitude to finish the season,” Coleman said. “I looked back at my old games, and I looked to see what I did wrong and tried to perfect that in the next six games. When things don’t go my way, I don’t need to slow down. I need to put more pressure. I don’t need to get in my head. I need to keep on pushing.

“I think as a human being you want that instant gratification. You want to win right now. When things don’t go your way, you get down on yourself. I just have to have that mental fortitude not to get down on myself, pick my head up high and keep pushing.”

That Coleman can turn to Sintim for help in that regard is part of why the latter was Bielema’s choice to replace Bullen. Sintim played the position, and he’s coached it for the last decade with stops at West Alabama, Richmond, Delaware and his alma mater.

“For me, as a head coach, I’ve purposefully hired people who are opposites,” Bielema said. “In that room, I wanted to bring a different skill set. One of the things I really sought when I was replacing Charlie was I wanted someone that maybe had playing experience at that position so he could voice that to them, as well.”