New Assistants Johnson, Stockton Bringing Passion to Spring Practice

When you really boil it down, college football at its essence is largely a relationship game.

Coach to player. Teammate to teammate. Student to community. The bonds built by the game are long lasting.

And for Ball State's two newest assistant coaches, relationships are what brought them to Muncie.

For offensive line coach Colin Johnson, it was his love affair with Ball State University. For co-defensive coordinator Tyler Stockton, it was his kinship with Cardinals DC David Elson.

Now two weeks into spring practice, both have hit the ground running. One a former BSU captain paying it forward to the next generation at his alma mater. And one who once spurned Wall Street to devote himself to the game he loves.

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Colin Johnson remembers warming up for the 2004 ArenaCup in Fort Myers, Florida. Two years removed from his days as Ball State's starting center, he was now blocking for the Peoria Pirates of AF2. He looked up in the stands and caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It was Mike Neu, then the head coach of the Arena Football League's New Orleans VooDoo.

Johnson didn't know Neu personally, but he had seen his picture on the wall at Ball State's football complex and heard the tales of his time with the Cardinals … the 1993 MAC Championship, the league offensive MVP award, the great Homecoming comeback against Toledo. He still remembers that moment fondly.

"It was really exciting for me to see him in the stands," Johnson said. "Not because I was hoping he'd recruit me to the VooDoo or anything like that. It was just the fact that I saw one of my own."

That's the kind of pride and passion Johnson has always felt for Ball State. He had an inkling he wanted to coach one day, to provide an influence for young men like his coaches were for him. But he couldn't have known that 15 years down the road he would be working for that man in the stands … right back at the place where it really started for both of them.

When Johnson came on board this winter, he became the fourth BSU alumnus on staff, joining Neu, defensive line coach and Super Bowl XXXI champion Keith McKenzie, and offensive coordinator and BSU career completion percentage leader Joey Lynch.

"I'm like a kid in a candy store being back with this program again," Johnson said. "For me to get this opportunity to come back and work for (Coach Neu) has been an amazing experience. He's everything you'd think he was. He's a great football coach, great mind. A great leader for this program."

And while Johnson is an accomplished member of the Ball State football family, it feels like he is just as much a part of the Lynch's. He has now played for or with all four Lynch men, starting with his days playing for Bill Lynch and alongside sons Billy and eventually Joey at Ball State.

Billy helped him get his foot in the door as a varsity assistant at Warren Central High School and shortly thereafter as a graduate assistant at Indiana, where he worked under Bill and alongside both Billy and youngest brother Kevin, now the BSU running backs coach. Johnson later coach five seasons under Bill Lynch at DePauw.

Joey Lynch recalls his former teammate not only as a gifted player and three-year starter but also for his character and leadership as team captain. Johnson was part of a Ball State team that ended the nation's longest losing streak with four straight wins in 2000 and shared the MAC West Division championship just one year later.

But perhaps the greatest story about him is from his junior year when he tore a tendon in his right hand and then taught himself how to snap with his left. He shrugs it off as "one of those stories where the legend grows year by year."

In reality, he just couldn't stand to be on the sidelines. He missed one game, agonizingly watching as his Cardinals got stuffed twice late, needing only a yard for a first down, before Northern Iowa kicked a game-winning field goal. He hated the helpless feeling of watching it unfold and vowed to play the rest of the season any way he could, even if it meant immobilizing his right hand and snapping with his left.

His passion for the program was evident then, and it still is today.

"It is THE job to him, and that's really, really cool," Joey Lynch said. "When you're as passionate about this place as he is, there's not a more excited offensive line coach in the country than Colin Johnson."

Stockton Reunites with Mentor
Tyler Stockton almost never met David Elson. The Western Illinois defensive coordinator at the time, Elson and the Leathernecks were looking for a defensive line coach back in 2016. They thought they had their guy, but WIU head coach Charlie Fisher asked Elson to make one more call to check on one more potential candidate.

Fisher was getting recommendations from several friends in the business about a young graduate assistant from UConn. So Elson picked up the phone, and pretty soon they had a different guy.

"Literally within about two minutes on the phone, I said, 'Oh wow, we need to get this guy in here to interview.' And I ran in and told Charlie that. He was impressive from the get-go, and then when he got there he was even better."

A year later, Elson moved on to be the defensive coordinator at Ball State. And a year after that, Stockton stepped into his old role as the top defensive coach at Western Illinois.

But their one year coaching together left a lasting impression on both of them. And now they are reunited, with Stockton working alongside Elson as the Cardinals' co-coordinator and inside linebackers coach.

"We had a really good connection, good chemistry," Stockton said. "Game planning, the same type of mentality when it comes to coaching. When he and Coach Neu asked me about this position, it was a no-brainer in my book."

Stockton's rise up the coaching ladder has been a fast one. In just five years he has gone from graduate assistant to co-defensive coordinator at the FBS level. He credits it all to being around good people who have given him opportunities.

But Stockton is a smart guy, too. Smart enough to earn an MBA and land internships with some of Wall Street's largest financial institutions. And smart enough to realize that world wasn't really what moved him.

"I was sitting in class and everyone was talking about their experiences in investment banking, and it didn't excite me much," Stockton said. "What excited me was just being on the football field, coming out here with a group of guys and trying to do everything to become a great team."

That was what the former top recruit from New Jersey relished as a defensive lineman at Notre Dame (his former Irish teammate and later Ball State grad transfer Brandon Newman was the third person he called after taking the job). Stockton was a leader and pseudo-coach among his position group for a Fighting Irish program that reached the BCS National Championship Game.

"I truly fell in love with all the little things that make a football team great," he said.

Now his young coaching journey has brought him back to the state of Indiana, where he is eager to assist in Ball State's continued defensive transformation in year two of a 3-4 scheme.

Elson describes him as a knowledgeable communicator with contagious positive energy, saying, "I just knew as soon as I had an opportunity to get him back with me, I wanted him on staff."

New Assistants Johnson, Stockton Bringing Passion to Spring Practice

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