Getty Matt Patricia is, literally, the brains behind the Patriots' operation with a degree in aeronautic engineering.
Matt Patricia is not the stereotypical NFL coach.
He’s a former lineman who played college ball at the Division III level, wears his baseball cap backwards and has tendency to wear shorts even when it’s winter in New England. Oh and he is, literally, a rocket scientist.
You didn’t read that wrong.
The 43-year-old, who is currently one of the hottest names for a handful of coaching vacancies around the league, graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 1996 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. RPI is not a football powerhouse. It is a small, engineering-focused school with two Division I teams. In men’s and women’s hockey.
#TBT | Before earning his aeronautical engineering degree from @RPI, @Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia ’96 had a heck of a senior season for @RPIFootball, helping #RPI win a title while setting numerous records #d3fb @RPIEng @RPIAlumni
Still, Patricia found his footing at RPI, both on the gridiron and in the classroom. Joe King, the Engineer’s coach while Patricia played on the line, told The Troy Record in 2015:
Matt was always a football junkie, which a lot of the RPI kids were at the time. That group did everything together. Matt was one of the ring leaders. When it became his time he was ready. Matt was always a very smart player. He made all the right calls on the line. He ended up having a really good career for us.
So what exactly does an aeronautical engineer do?
According to the RPI website, the degree focuses on “disciplines and technologies relevant to all varieties of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, and space vehicles, as well as other vehicles and systems (such as submarines and wind-turbines) operating in an aerodynamic or hydrodynamic environment.” The average aeronautical engineer makes just over $85,000 per Indeed.com.
It’s not exactly the “usual” jumping-off point for a defensive-minded NFL coach – but Patricia’s been willing to take the road less traveled . He worked as an application engineer at Hoffman Air & Filtration Systems in East Syracuse just after graduating, suiting up, quite literally, about 40 minutes away from where he grew up.
It didn’t take long for Patricia to realize he wasn’t cut out for the 9-5 life.
He’d worked as a graduate assistant in his fifth year at RPI, while getting his master’s degree, and the coaching bug stuck – even after he got his hands on that science diploma. Patricia spent his free time working with the offensive line at Liverpool High School and even did some unpaid work at Syracuse University before walking away from the steady, paying gig in engineering and accepting the defensive line coaching job at Division III Amherst.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Patricia, currently in his 13th season with New England, worked as an offensive graduate assistant at Syracuse and made the NFL-leap in 2004, joining the Patriots ranks as a coaching assistant. He spent five seasons as the team’s linebackers coach and one season coaching the safeties and, on May 10, 2012, was named the defensive coordinator.
While it may seem like a jump from engineer to head coach, Patricia has taken every move in stride and still uses his degree every time he paces the sidelines. Ray Moran, RPI’s offensive line coach in 1992 told The New York Post:
As tenacious as some of the other people that graduated from RPI to ‘How do I make the next smaller chip?’ or ‘How do I make the next super computer?,’ he’s doing that every day, it’s just in the athletic world. hat goes beyond X’s and O’s, it’s just like being a manager in a company. ‘How do I make this person better when they can’t see it and how do I get them to do something they don’t really want to do?
Patricia isn’t the only NFL talent to come out of RPI in recent years. Andrew Franks, who set just about every special teams record in the Engineer’s history books, signed as an undrafted free agent as a kicker with the Miami Dolphins in 2015. Franks graduated with a biomedical engineering degree and he and Patricia even squared off when the Patriots took on the Dolphins in October, 2015.
The rumors around Patricia’s coaching future continue to swirl throughout the NFL postseason. The New York Daily News reported “all signs” pointed to Patricia as the next head coach of the New York Giants on January 10, but ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported, on January 14, that Patricia was set to be named the head man in Detroit. He also reportedly interviewed with the Arizona Cardinals.
No matter what happens next though, one thing is for certain – Patricia will always be the smartest guy in the room.