Inside Augie Hoffmann's decision to return as St. Joseph football coach | Cooper

MONTVALE − Augie Hoffmann didn’t need directions to the St. Joseph locker room or coaches room, but he did need a new key card.

“I didn’t even have a key card, it was all keys,” Hoffmann laughed. “A lot has changed.”

North Jersey non-public football has never seen anything like this. Augie Hoffmann was the St. Joe's head coach from 2014-2019 and won state titles in 2016 (Non-Public Group 3) and 2018 (Non-Public Group 4). He left to seek greener pastures at Rutgers, then Columbia.

Now, Hoffmann is back in charge of the Green Knights and returns to a landscape that has changed a lot in four years.

On the football field, Bergen Catholic is on top, three years running. St. Joe’s switched philosophies on offense to more of an up-tempo attack. It was successful, but maybe not successful enough.

Off the field, North Jersey football players can (and will) transfer now without penalty. There are no more restrictions on recruiting eighth grade players. Delbarton played in the most recent Non-Public A state final in 2023. Seton Hall Prep has improved. DePaul is a powerhouse. It’s no longer just the Bergen Catholic, Don Bosco and St. Joe’s Show.

Hoffmann has been busy, but he knows all of this. He left because he wanted to try something different, see a new level of football, but his alma mater always had the key to his heart.

“I think where I was most happy, always, was being here,” said Hoffmann, now 42. “And where I was most fulfilled was here.”

Having covered Hoffmann, my feeling is that once that first opportunity came to leave St. Joe's, he kept wrestling with the decision. Then he had the choice to either go work at Rutgers for Greg Schiano or at his alma mater, Boston College. He chose Rutgers.

After three seasons and a variety of roles, Hoffmann said he learned a lot. He praised Schiano for adding tools to his head-coaching toolbox, like better time management and attention to detail.

“Coach [Schiano] used to say they’re kicking the ball off at noon whether you’re ready or not,” Hoffmann said. “My football knowledge has grown, and I have learned how to run a program. I watched what he did. We would sit in meetings and he would say ‘put this in your head coaching book.’ I have taken a lot of that with me.”

Hoffmann and Schiano probably realized he had maxed out his potential at Rutgers, and while he doesn’t say it bluntly, Hoffmann missed his family. He has two sons, one a seventh-grade football player (an offensive lineman, of course). Last year, Hoffmann caught on as assistant coach at Columbia.

While being a head coach at a North Jersey superpower is a big job, it’s not as time consuming as being a college coach. Hoffmann wants to coach his son at St. Joe’s in a couple of years. That’s a factor that didn’t exist four years ago.

The other enticement for Hoffmann was the ability to work with Tony Karcich again. As if on cue, Karcich showed up at the end of our interview to start watching film of the Green Knights.

Hoffmann said Karcich would have a bigger role moving forward, if nothing else, at least as a mentor to Hoffmann.

“It’s awesome to be back together. He’s got a lot of coaching left in him. I have been around a lot of coaches in the last few years, he’s up there with the best of them. He has plenty to give.”

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During the offseason, Hoffmann has to figure out just what type of team he has. The Green Knights were individually talented, no question, but it seems harder and harder for a high school coach to get a talented player to put their own individual accomplishments aside for the betterment of the team.

Kids want the Instagram highlights and the five-star rating, but what about winning the football game? Shouldn’t that matter more than anything?

Hoffmann is going to be chased by rumors now, but he swears he’s keeping this key card forever.

“I think I understand who I am now more than ever. Listen, I loved my time in college. I had great relationships with those guys, but there is a difference in the difference that we make as coaches in high school [compared to college] that has always been important to me,” he said. “Sometimes it takes getting fired to figuring that out. Sometimes it takes going to a different conference, or whatever the case may be, and things work out the way they are supposed to.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Augie Hoffmann: Why he returned as St. Joseph NJ football coach