Hokies Tab Hillsborough HS OC Max Warner, "The Next Bill Walsh," to Join Coaching Staff

It seems that Scot Loeffler found more than just his potential quarterback of the future down in Tampa when he signed Dwayne Lawson out of Hillsborough HS; he also found the next member of his staff.

Hillsborough head coach Earl Garcia has now confirmed an earlier report by 247Sports that the school's offensive coordinator, Max Warner, will be leaving his staff to join the Hokies as an offensive quality control coordinator.

Warner declined to comment on the situation when reached by phone last week. However, the Virginia Tech athletic department confirmed Warner's hire. Warner began work with the Hokies on February 25th.

But Garcia was more than willing to talk about his former OC/quarterbacks coach, gushing over the work ethic and football knowledge that he'll bring to Tech's staff.

To be clear, Garcia denies the notion that hiring Warner and signing Lawson were somehow connected, saying "it was not by any means a package deal."

Instead, he believes the move stems from the relationship Warner and Loeffler developed as Tech courted Lawson. The pair worked together frequently after Garcia put his OC in charge of handling his most prominent recruit.

"(Lawson) was going to be such a national recruit, so I said 'you take him and I'll take the rest of the kids' because it's a pretty heavy workload to get an entire football team recruited," Garcia said. "In the process, every time Coach Loeffler would come in, he and I and Max would get on the board and we'd share some ideas and he and Scot just hit it off. I told Scot, 'we need him out of here, he needs to get back to college, he's too good a coach to spend time at this level.'"

Warner is indeed no stranger to the college ranks. He previously spent time as a graduate assistant at Fort Hays State, a Division II school in Kansas.

It was there that he encountered Al McCray, the school's wide receivers coach that formerly held a similar role down at Hillsborough, who came away immensely impressed with Warner's abilities.

"He's the next Bill Walsh, he's an offensive genius, that's for sure," McCray said. "His football IQ's off the charts, he's a very intelligent, football-minded coach. He's a great quarterback coach, he's great at developing young kids. You'll be hearing a lot about Max Warner in the next 10 years, I can tell you that much."

As Warner's time at Fort Hays wound down, McCray tried to give him a hand as he planned his next move.

"Most GAs in the Division II level spend about two years there, so after that he was looking for a job," McCray said. "And I just said 'hey, Coach Garcia is a great coach to work under.' He's a Hall of Fame coach down there in Florida."

McCray put in a good word for Warner with his old boss, and Garcia quickly found himself hiring a new quarterbacks coach.

"He called me and told me 'hey there's this really talented young guy you need talk to' and Max and I hit off. I turned the offense over to him and that's how we did business for the last few years," Garcia said. "It was all Coach McCray, and consequently, he also turned me on to the guy I hired to replace Max as the new OC...so Coach McCray has been my broker, he's been my talent scout for me."

Garcia was his own offensive coordinator when he hired Warner back in 2011, but after a year, he thought highly enough of his skills to cede those duties to Warner.

"Max is such a talented football coach and such a hard worker, such a committed person, he absolutely eats and breathes football," Garcia said.

His ascension to OC came just as Lawson took over as Hillsborough's starter, and Warner quickly formed a bond with his top quarterback. Garcia thinks that tutelage will prove to be tremendously helpful for Lawson as he acclimates to the college game.

"You couldn't find a better scenario for Dwayne Lawson," Garcia said. "Dwayne was taught at the collegiate level by Max, so as far as the X's and O's, except for the sheer volume of the offense, the structure, the nomenclature, the terminology and all the reads are going to be very familiar because he was taught at that level."

Garcia also believes that the pair's bond off the field will help Lawson as he adjusts to life so far away from home.

"From the emotional side, going from Florida to Virginia and having his father figure, which is basically what Max became to Dwayne, that is so comforting," Garcia said. "It's great for the family, it's great for Dwayne, and it's going to make the transition even smoother. And I fully expect him to be in the mix here for the Ohio State game."

But Warner won't just be working with Lawson in his new role. He'll likely be working closely with Loeffler to study what is, and what isn't, working with the offense, a role Garcia believes that will fit him well.

"Behind closed doors, Scot and Virginia Tech are not getting a 24-year-old GA who's a rookie head coach, this guy is knowledgeable as hell," Garcia said. "I promise you he'll be intimately involved in the offense. And I'm sure he'll be coaching the quarterback to some degree, whether it's pre-practice drills, post-practice drills, on the board or film study, so he'll be involved."

McCray also notes that any coach that works under Garcia learns to cultivate a work ethic that borders on the obsessive.

"Garcia has a sign as soon as you walk into the office, it says 'if you've worked 40 hours this week, it's not enough,'" McCray said. "So that's that mold that I knew Max Warner fit in."

For Loeffler, who's infamous for wandering bleary eyed around the football offices after some sleepless nights, that quality likely stood out immediately. But Garcia also believes Warner can learn plenty from his new boss.

"Scot's coached in the NFL, he's coached Tom Brady, he's been at Michigan, he's done all the D-I stuff and he's got contacts all over the country," Garcia said. "You've got to have a guy that will open the door for you and there's no better guy that I know of offensively than Scot Loeffler. He knows everybody and he's very well respected nationally, so that's a great guy to hook on to for Max."

If Loeffler can indeed open a few doors for Warner, Garcia doesn't anticipate Virginia Tech being the end of the line for his coaching career.

"Within a year he'll be a position coach at a Division I school and he has such a great mind that he'll be an OC within four or five years," Garcia said. "He has a very bright future."