Mike Kupfner hired as Marietta High football coach
Trending
Mike Kupfner has paid his dues as an assistant football coach.
A member of the Parkersburg High coaching staff dating back to 2015, Kupfner felt more than ready to take over as the head man of a program. During the Marietta City Schools Board of Education meeting Monday night, Kupfner was approved as the next head coach at Marietta High School.
He succeeds Jason Schob, who resigned earlier this year after 11 seasons at the helm of his alma mater.
"I'm thrilled with this opportunity," Kupfner said. "I'm happy the administration trusted me and offered me the position. It's been a goal of mine really the last eight or nine years. I've always had ambitions to be a head coach. I've worked with a lot of great head coaches that have been mentors for me. I felt this was the perfect time for me to take the next step and be a head coach, and I'm happy to do it with the Marietta Tigers."
Kupfner graduated from PHS in 2008. Two years later he started coaching middle school football at Hamilton. In 2015, then-Big Reds head coach Don Reeves brought Kupfner onto the varsity staff. In 2017 when Mike Byus was named the PHS head coach, Kupfner was promoted to defensive coordinator.
Kupfner and his family briefly moved to South Carolina before returning to PHS.
He joined the Big Reds coaching staff again, this time as the wide receivers coach, before becoming the DC again when Matt Kimes was hired as the head coach.
Having experience coaching on both sides of the ball is a major benefit for Kupfner.
"I feel confident in calling offense or defense," Kupfner said. "I also feel confident in just being a head coach and having an offensive and defensive coordinator call plays. It will really depend on how it goes when I meet with guys and put together the staff. That's something I've got to navigate over the next week or so."
Kupfner also touched on what his philosophies are on both sides of the ball and what kind of schemes fans can expect to see from the Tigers.
"The base of the offense will be spread oriented," he said. "We want to be multifaceted. For example, if we didn't have a quarterback who can sling the ball, you can shift into more H-formations and a power run game. I know they were wing-T last year.
"Defensively, a 4-3, cover-2, get to cover-3, run a little man. I like to be a little risky on defense. I believe you should try to dictate a little bit of what's going on with your defense."
Kupfner's philosophies have been shaped in part by the many people he's worked with over the years.
"I had the pleasure of being mentored by a lot of different guys," Kupfner said. "Mike Byus made a huge impact when he came up from North Carolina. He was a major influence on me. (PHS assistant) Mike Dawson, same way. He kind of taught me the ins and outs of running a defense and making game plans. And I've got to give a big shoutout to Matt Kimes. He has been 100% supportive of me and my ambitions to be a head coach. In the last three years, he's helped me grow tremendously as a coach on and off the field."
Kupfner hopes to help achieve an identity at Marietta similar to what Parkersburg has in the West Virginia big school ranks.
"We want to be known as a gritty bunch," he said. "We're going to get after teams, play hard and play with effort. Control the things we can control. We want to play clean, aggressive, hard-nosed football."
Two years ago the Tigers made the Ohio playoffs for the first time since 2002 -- not counting the 2020 Covid season where everybody made it. Then, last year, Marietta posted its first winning record (6-4) since that same 2002 campaign.
Kupfner likes the direction the program is heading and wants to help it continue to build and grow.
"I think the program is in a solid state coming in, and that's a credit to coach Schob," Kupfner said. "I'm looking to come in and put my touch on it a little bit and grow the program. I'm looking forward to working with the team, the administration and the community. It takes a village to make a football program grow. I've already had a lot of great people from the community reach out. I'm looking forward to working with the youth and middle school programs and having an opportunity to build this thing from the foundation all the way up."
Contact Jordan Holland at jholland@mariettatimes.com.