Jeff Nixon hoping to make more highlight reels

Those who have been around the Panthers’ senior offensive assistant and running backs coach believe he’s well-suited for the job at hand. Veteran defensive coordinator Phil Snow said that even though Nixon’s “a really quiet” guy, there’s a baseline of extreme competence about everything he does.

“He’s well-qualified to do what he’s going to do,” Snow said. “I think everybody’s excited about that. I think one thing is; he has some old-school in him, that will run the football. He knows the importance of running the football, obviously he’s a running backs coach too.

“And his knowledge of the game. He’s been around the game a long time, at this level. He knows how the league works, the defensive schemes, . . . I think he’ll do great.”

In addition to having worked for Rhule at Baylor, Nixon also had 10 years of NFL experience before coming here, working for the Eagles, Dolphins, and 49ers in roles including running backs, tight ends, and special teams. That background, and their shared history, made it easy for Rhule to trust Nixon with their play-calling at Baylor.

“Obviously as his coordinator at Baylor, he feels comfortable we can be on the same page, of how he wants the game to be called,” Nixon said. “We’re not all of a sudden going to put in a brand new offense in two to three days so I think he feels comfortable with my knowledge of the offensive system, comfortable knowing how I’m going to call the game and how he wants this offense to look for the next five or hopefully more Sundays.”

The two went to high school together in State College, Penn., where Nixon was the star running back who grew up in Western Pennsylvania, and Rhule the center on the football team and a sneaky good basketball player who moved there from New York City.

Rhule recalled his teammate’s strength back then, saying Nixon could bench press 225 pounds “like 20-some times when we were in 10th grade and 11th grade. I certainly could not.”

And Nixon recalled Rhule as “more athletic than you’d think.”

“You look at him like, well, …” Nixon said with a grin. “Especially in basketball now, he’s from New York. He was a really good basketball player, he’s a good athlete.”

But Rhule’s first assist in Nixon’s football career came via some early video dubbing technology. Rhule used a pair of VHS machines and some early 90s music tracks (Pete Rock and TL Smooth, Das EFX) to make a recruiting video.

“I was digital enough I could hook up two VCRs and put a soundtrack to it, and make his highlight film for him,” Rhule said with a grin.

Nixon laughed and said he still produces the tape from time to time (and still has a working VCR to play it on), much to the delight of his kids. While they might be entertained by the music and the ancient technology, Nixon admitted the actual game tape might not be as impressive as he recalled, though it didn’t keep him from a scholarship at West Virginia (before he transferred to Penn State to rejoin Rhule).

“It would look kind of slow; I know that,” Nixon said of his own play. “This guy was a Division I scholarship player? Those VHS tapes, they look like you’re running in mud.”

He did allow that you’d also see “a tough, physical, hard-nosed player. A good player, I’m not going to say great. But I did make some plays. You see a tough, hard, physical player.”