First-year T.C. Williams head football coach Marc Matthie spent thelast five seasons as defensive coordinator at Centreville. Photo by Jon Roetman.
Marc Matthie spent the last five seasons as defensive coordinator of the Centreville football team, building his coaching credentials by helping the Wildcats win the 2013 6A state championship, and return to the state final the following year.
After reaching the pinnacle of VHSL football as an assistant, the 36-year-old is now the head coach at T.C. Williams, where he faces a new challenge: bringing consistent success back to the once-proud Alexandria program.
Matthie, a 1997 Chantilly graduate and former William & Mary linebacker, is aware of the conundrum that is T.C. Williams football. The Titans have talented players most seasons, but can’t put it together. The program won state titles in 1971, 1984 and 1987, but also experienced a 22-year postseason drought. The Titans made the playoffs in 2013 for the first time in more than two decades, but followed the historic season with a 2-8 record the following year.
How does Matthie plan to turn the Titans into an annual winner?
“TC has always had talent,” Matthie said. “They’ve always been a talented football team. Same thing when we were at Centreville; we had talent. But the major thing is: will your kids buy into what you’re doing? If they buy into it at a high percentage, you have a chance to maximize the talent.”
So far, so good for Matthie, who appears to have the backing of two of his top athletes.
Matthie made a good impression with one of his best defensive players when the new head coach brought up something other than football during one of their first conversations.
“He’s a really helpful coach,” rising senior defensive end Chadi Abdalla said. “He cares about you first and what you’re going to do after high school. When he came to me, he didn’t ask about football. He asked how I was doing. How are your grades? Do you have any plans? Then he said football is a key to go all the way. I really like that about him.”
Rising senior running back Mahlique Booth, one of the Titans’ top playmakers in recent seasons, welcomes Matthie’s drastic changes to the program’s offense. T.C. Williams ran the spread for years under former head coach Dennis Randolph, but Matthie feels the best way to utilize TC’s athleticism is to get the ball to his playmakers in a hybrid version of the wing-T, a run-first offense used by Centreville.
“If it’s a better way to get one up on the opponent, I’ll buy into the system,” Booth said, “and just make sure I can acclimate [well] enough so I can do what I need to do on the field.”
Matthie’s success at Centreville has helped gain the Titans’ attention.
“If you want rings, he has a [state championship] ring,” Abdalla said. “He makes me feel like, ‘This guy knows what he’s talking about,’ and I can win one too.”
On offense, Matthie hopes to get multiple players involved with the wing-T attack. He mentions that former Centreville running backs AJ Turner (South Carolina), Taylor Boose (Cincinnati) and Xavier Nickens-Yzer, and receiver Charles Tutt (JMU) received scholarship offers while playing in the system.
Booth, who will likely be the Titans’ primary offensive threat, set a goal of 2,500 rushing yards this season. Rising seniors Tavaris James, Colson Jenkins and Thomas Huston, and rising sophomore Akiti Taylor will also see touches.
Rising sophomore Ethan Hall and rising junior Charles Farmer will compete for the starting quarterback position.
On the other side of the ball, the Titans will run a multiple defense. Abdalla, rising senior lineman Ravon Bridges and rising senior cornerback Chris Waddell are standouts.
T.C. Williams will host its Red/Blue scrimmage on Saturday, Aug. 15, and will open the regular season on the road against Thomas Jefferson at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. The Titans’ first home game is against Westfield at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19.
Matthie said he would like members of the Alexandria community to help the Titans improve on and off the field.
“[T.C. Williams is] the only school in Northern Virginia that’s a one-town, one-school community," Matthie said. "That’s how it used to be and what you had with that was you had a village that came around that school and said how can I help pour into these kids to make them great? That’s what we want to be able to do at TC.”
With the season opener approaching, Matthie is working to turn the T.C. Williams football program into a consistent winner.
“No. 1 is we keep asking [the players], ‘Why are you out here?’” Matthie said. “One of the major things is your motivation for why you’re out here. If your motivation is to be the best, then it requires an insane amount of work to get that done. Your effort has to be tied into what your goals want to be. If your goals are ... just be a 55 team, then your effort will translate that. If you want to be an undefeated team, a state championship potential team or even a playoff team, you have to understand the amount of work that’s necessary for that, and are you willing to put in that work?”