Three Things UT-Martin Coach Jason Simpson Said ahead of the Skyhawks’ Trip to Stillwater

Not many coaches make it 20 years at one place, but two will be on opposite sidelines from each other Thursday night in Boone Pickens Stadium.

Jason Simpson took over the Skyhawk program in 2006 and has accumulated a 124-92 record while leading UT-Martin to the FCS playoffs three times. He has also won the Ohio Valley Conference five times (including each of the past four years).

Simpson met with reporters (two, myself and 247Sports’ McClain Baxley) via Zoom on Tuesday to preview his team’s meeting with Oklahoma State. Here are three things that stood out.

Sharing an Office With Doug Meacham

Simpson has been the head man at UT-Martin since 2006, but less than a decade before that, he said he was sharing an office with new OSU offensive coordinator Doug Meacham in Jacksonville, Alabama.

Meacham was Jax State’s OC while Simpson had stints as the team’s receivers coach and quarterback coach. Simpson said he learned a lot of football from Meacham.

He also isn’t short on stories about the Cowboys’ OC.

“Actually, when I first took this job, Meach told me that he had been to Martin before, which surprised me,” Simpson said. “And I said, ‘How have you ever been to Martin, Tennessee?’ He said his grandparents lived here. And so he said in the summers, he used to come here.

“He said, ‘Yeah, I was 14 years old. I used to wear a trench coat and sit on my BMX by the railroad tracks smoking a cigarette when I was 14.’ So, he’s always got some some funny stories.”

Meacham apparently also had some interesting workout strategies.

“Being a young coach or whatever, I’d run to McDonald’s at lunch, OK?” Simpson said. “And Meach used to get on me because we would go run or work out or play basketball together and stuff. He would say, ‘We just got through running. Why are you eating that cheeseburger?’ And I said, ‘Man, I’m starving.’ And he would say, ‘No, the workout is this,’ he goes, ‘You just sit there and you let the hunger pains, and you fight them and you fight them.’ He goes, ‘That’s the workout.’ So that was his workout plan for me, just have hunger pains. That’s better than any workout we could do.”

It’s hard to argue against Meacham’s plan. He went from OSU offensive lineman to looking like this:

Former Cowboy Playing at UT-Martin

Na’Drian Dizadare spent three seasons in Stillwater and left with a degree in business finance. He’s now entering his third season with the Skyhawks.

Dizadare was a three-star linebacker in the 2019 recruiting class out of Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana. He played in a dozen games with the Cowboys, recording a quartet of tackles.

Unfortunately, he suffered a season-ending injury in his first game with the Skyhawks against No. 1 Georgia in 2023.

He played in 10 games for UT-Martin last season at outside linebacker and on special teams, and Simpson said he’s hoping for a successful year for the former Poke.

“This is the first time we’ve really seen him healthy since that first game he started,” Simpson said. “He’s a great person, great teammate, quality young man. I’m hoping he’ll have success this year, we certainly need him to.”

Not the First Time Simpson’s Skyhawks Have Seen a Todd Grantham Defense

In 2019, Simpson took the Skyhawks down to Gainesville, Florida, where they faced Todd Grantham’s Gators.

Florida, ranked 11th nationally at the time, beat UT-Martin 45-0. Florida held the Skyhawks to 194 yards of total offense and eight first downs.

“I know how difficult it was for us when Coach Grantham was at Florida just for us to get a first down,” Simpson said. “Schematically that was a problem for us. It’s a very sophisticated, multiple defense in my opinion in the history of his tenure for sure.”