From Delaware County to Baltimore, a Yorktown Tiger and a Muncie Central Bearcat have now joined forces in the National Football League.
It was an active offseason in the NFL with a record-tying 10 franchises changing head coaches, including the Baltimore Ravens, who fired John Harbaugh after 18 seasons. The Ravens landed on Jesse Minter — formerly the Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator and a 2001 graduate of Yorktown High School — as Harbaugh’s replacement.
Less than a week after the NFL’s second-longest head coaching tenure ended in Baltimore, the league’s longest tenure ended in Pittsburgh when Mike Tomlin stepped down after 19 seasons as the Steelers head coach. With new Steelers coach Mike McCarthy bringing in his own staff, that left Eddie Faulkner — Pittsburgh’s running backs coach and a 1996 graduate of Muncie Central High School — on the job market.
The stars had officially aligned — Minter needed a running backs coach on his staff in Baltimore, and Faulkner needed a new home after seven seasons in Pittsburgh. On Feb. 3, the Ravens announced that Faulkner would be the team’s next running backs coach, officially bringing together the two Delaware County high school football products.
‘Somebody that I’ve known about for a long time’
Jesse Minter was born in Arkansas in 1983, and his family moved to Muncie when he was just 2 years old after his father, Rick Minter, took a job as the defensive coordinator at Ball State in 1985. After their parents split up, Jesse and his brother moved to Yorktown with their mother, where Jesse eventually became a wide receiver for the Tigers’ football team.
Though their paths never crossed on the field, Minter was very familiar with Faulkner thanks to the latter’s legendary Bearcat career taking place during his own upbringing in the area.
“He’s somebody that I’ve known about for a long time,” Minter said in a phone interview with The Star Press. “I remember when he played at Muncie Central.”
A first-team all-state running back, Region 5 Player of the Year and Mr. Football finalist in 1995, Faulkner went on to play at the University of Wisconsin. During his career there, the Badgers played two games against Cincinnati — coached by none other than Rick Minter.
“In 1999, he would have been a younger guy at Wisconsin, and Cincinnati actually beat Wisconsin, which was a huge upset at the time,” Jesse Minter said. “Then in 2000, Cincinnati went up to Wisconsin and played, had them in overtime again, and Eddie Faulkner scored the winning touchdown, so all the way back, he’s the guy that I’ve certainly known about.”
A surprising transition and a strong endorsement
After a short-lived professional playing career, Faulkner got his coaching start as the running backs coach at Anderson University in 2002 before joining Ball State as a graduate assistant in 2003. He worked his way up the ranks with the Cardinals, eventually becoming the running backs coach and offensive coordinator in 2009 and 2010. From there, he had brief stints at Northern Illinois, Pittsburgh, and his alma mater, Wisconsin, before spending five years at NC State from 2013-18.
Faulkner first reached the NFL in 2019 when Tomlin hired him as the Steelers running backs coach. He became one of the most respected position coaches in Pittsburgh during his tenure there, even taking over as interim offensive coordinator during the 2023 season when the team fired Matt Canada. But when Tomlin stepped away from the team, Faulkner unexpectedly became a free agent.
As Minter considered Faulkner for the RB coach position on his own staff, he sought advice from Tomlin and got a ringing endorsement.
“Mike Tomlin is kind of like a mentor to me, somebody that I’ve known for a while. I actually talked to him just to kind of get my own advice about the head coaching process,” Minter said. “As it kind of got developing, we kind of talked about Eddie as a guy that we would potentially like to get on the staff, and Mike spoke nothing but great things about him.
“Timing is everything, and it worked out well for us.”
‘He’s going to be a great head coach’
As Faulkner prepares for the next chapter of his coaching career in Baltimore, he has remained connected to Muncie through the Team Faulk Youth Development Football Camp, which held its third annual event recently at Central. After the camp, Faulkner discussed his new job and his confidence in Minter’s leadership abilities.
“I think he’s going to be a great head coach,” Faulkner said. “He’s a leader of men, and he’s very knowledgeable and competent in what he wants to do and what he’s doing. I’m looking forward to being on his staff. I love the staff he’s assembled, but we haven’t been through a season yet.
“That’s going to come with its own trials and tribulations, but his leadership, I think, will give us an opportunity to rise above anything that comes in our path.”
The fact that two former Delaware County high school football players have an opportunity to team up together on the biggest stage is no mere coincidence. In a region full of historic basketball and volleyball programs, the popularity of the Indianapolis Colts in the late 1990s and early 2000s created a more football-minded generation that has now risen to the NFL themselves.
“Both of our ages speak to, in my opinion, Peyton Manning being the quarterback of the Colts, and even Jim Harbaugh in the mid-90s, the Colts’ success sort of causing Indiana to become a little bit more of a balanced state from a focus standpoint,” Minter said. “It made football more important in the state, especially in Delaware County, where it’s been a super successful volleyball and basketball county. It was a great place to grow up. There’s great coaches there.
“I think what you learn as you go through this process is that there’s great people and great coaches at every level, and some of my most influential people, and I’m sure Eddie would say the same thing, were coaches and people we’ve met from Delaware County.”
Minter’s and Faulkner’s Ravens debut will bring them back close to home, as the purple and gold will visit Lucas Oil Stadium to take on the Colts in a Week 1 contest on Sept. 13.
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Former Yorktown, Muncie Central football players united on NFL coaching staff
Reporting by Cade Hampton, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Cade Hampton, Muncie Star Press | USA TODAY Network
