Who is AJ Milwee? Ask his first boss, Terry Bowden

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In late 2008, Terry Bowden decided he wanted to get back into coaching. Ten years after stepping down at Auburn, Bowden returned to the sidelines at Division II North Alabama.

When he arrived, a graduate assistant who had just completed a stellar career was already in the football offices. AJ Milwee, a two-time Harlon Hill Trophy finalist (the Div. II Heisman) who compiled a 33-5 record for the UNA Lions, decided to become a graduate assistant after exhausting his eligibility.

Throughout Bowden’s career, he coached several quarterbacks who have gone on to become accomplished offensive coaches. Bowden, now the head coach at Louisiana-Monroe, named dropped Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher, Aggie wide receiver coach Dameyune Craig, and former Miami Hurricanes offensive coordinator Patrick Nix as some of his former proteges. He was effusive in his praise for all of them, and even joked that a Texas-centric outlet might not look kindly on praise given to the head man in College Station.

“All that is being said as a preface to the fact that AJ is another one,” Bowden said of the new Texas quarterback coach. “He’s another guy that I’ve worked with that’s just phenomenal, just a phenomenal teacher. He’s a great teacher and will do a great job with your quarterbacks.”

Milwee was Bowden’s quarterback coach at UNA for two seasons, carrying full-time responsibilities on a graduate assistant’s salary (common for Division II). He left for East Mississippi Junior College for the 2011 season, then rejoined Bowden’s staff at Akron as quarterback coach in 2012.

After three combined seasons of Division II and junior college coaching, what led Bowden to hiring Milwee upon his return to Division I coaching at Akron?

“I’ve hired so many, either they can, or they can’t,” Bowden said. “I can tell early if they’re going to be a good coach. Are they grinders? Are they students of the game? Do they have a great football IQ? Do they have great work habits? Do they have intelligence? Those four or five things you identify, and you know they’re going to be good.”

Did Bowden identify those in Milwee?

“He’s everything I look for,” Bowden said. “He’s a son of a football coach, he’s a high school quarterback, a great quarterback, he’s a college quarterback, and he coaches quarterbacks. He comes with everything that I had when I was growing up except, I couldn’t play quarterback. He was everything I looked for, and I had some pretty good quarterbacks.”

Bowden enjoyed Milwee’s calm demeanor in how he handled the quarterback room. He believed it helped keep the entire position group on an even keel.

It led to successes on the field in Akron. Milwee and Bowden helped a middling-to-mediocre Akron program to two .500-or-better seasons and its third-ever MAC East division championship. Two of the top five passers in Zips’ history, Tommy Woodson and Kyle Pohl, played under Milwee.

But for Bowden, the most important thing a quarterback coach could do was to please the head coach. In order to please the head coach, the quarterback coach had to make sure the quarterback did exactly what the head coach wanted on a given play.

A similar dynamic now exists in Austin. Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian will call the plays, but Milwee will oversee the quarterback room and make sure the game plan Sarkisian wants to execute is drilled into his players. Bowden believes Milwee will “make it perfect.”

“I called the plays for most of my career,” Bowden said. “Their job was to have that quarterback in tune with the play-caller. AJ comes in knowing that. That’s very important.”

There’s also trust in the head coach at Texas. Bowden said he believed Sarkisian did a great job against Ohio State in the CFP Championship of “allowing great players to win that game and not billion-dollar coaches on the sideline.”

Overall, he is excited to see the young coach he met in Florence, Ala. almost a decade ago to go to work under the bright lights of Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium.

“AJ, he’ll do a great job,” Bowden said. “I know it not just by having been with me for seven years, and this is my 26th year as a head coach. I’ve had a lot of good quarterback coaches at every level. I’ve watched him do it, and I’ve watched my father do it with the ones he’s had, and Texas has got a good one. I think they identified that, and they’ve got one that I think will be a great asset for that program. I see great things happening.”

Photos courtesy of North Alabama Athletics