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As the chaos of the game swirled around him, Jesse Minter was an expert at staying cool and collected while directing his defenses to stifle opponents. But his fire and competitiveness often peeked through his calm facade — with a smirk.

Michigan defensive end Derrick Moore immediately knew the smile. Moore played two seasons for Minter and said he was, for the most part, a quiet guy. He could communicate a lot with a look.

“He’ll give you that stare, and you know you got to fix something,” Moore said.

Occasionally, he could give the rah-rah speech, but the switch from cool to fiery was most often flipped by competition — or pride in his players.

“I love when he talk his shit,” Moore said. “... Even though I’m a quiet guy myself, I’m the same way. I like to pop my stuff sometimes. And that’s one thing about Coach Minter. He’s going to pop his stuff.”

No team knows that better than Ohio State. In 2023, with the Wolverines up by six in the final minute, Minter’s defense iced the game with an interception. Minter, Moore recalled with glee, was the first one to reach the Ohio State sideline to wave them goodbye.

That was, those who have worked with him said, a rare public display that might obscure his more subtle genius: the way he communicates complicated concepts that elevate a defense. Former players and colleagues spoke to The Banner to explain what it’s like to work closely with Minter.

A skilled negotiator

When Rick Minter joined his son’s Georgia State defensive staff as the defensive line coach in 2016, people were on “pins and needles,” P.J. Volker recalled.

Volker was Jesse Minter’s teammate at the College of Mount St. Joseph and coached with him at Indiana State and Georgia State before becoming the defensive coordinator at the Naval Academy. Volker will reportedly join his old friend on the Ravens staff as an assistant.

For as many things as Minter has taken from his dad, demeanor is not one of them. Rick Minter is super outgoing and strong-willed, Volker said.

“But Jesse’s way to navigate that situation was masterful, and it was just such a wonderful working relationship,” Volker said. “And, you know, there were times where he just had to tell his dad he was in charge. And there were a lot of times where Rick’s insight was instrumental in our success as well.”

Minter’s quietness belies his strength. His ability to communicate and listen has helped him manage big personalities.

In 2021, Minter joined Clark Lea’s Vanderbilt staff as its defensive coordinator. They were two years apart in age, and they were both competitive and prideful, Lea said. They both had specific ideas for how the team should look. Those things led to confrontations, which could have led to disrespect and bitterness, especially combined with the struggles of the team that season.

“But Jesse is really skilled at confrontation behind a closed door,” Lea said. “He’ll say exactly what’s on his mind, and he’ll say that to coaches, he’ll say that to players, he’ll say that to ownership, he’ll say that to whoever. For me, that gives way to really healthy collaboration. It can be really tough but ultimately rewarding.”

Minter is very organized and knows how to communicate what he’s thinking, which are key elements of a good negotiator, explained J.D. Williams, who was Minter’s defensive backs coach at Georgia State. His lack of ego and willingness to listen to input — even if he’s not going to take it — gave him more leeway in tricky situations.

Whether it was his father or Lea or Jim Harbaugh — the famously forceful personality he worked for at Michigan and with the Los Angeles Chargers — Minter has always been able to stick up for himself, his ideas, and more importantly, his players.

“I’ve seen Coach Minter definitely take up for us all the time,” said Joe Peterson, a former Georgia State linebacker. “The guy always had our back. Even if it was doing a drill in practice, he wanted to see his players succeed.”

Bobby Baker, Peterson’s teammate, added that Minter would even go up against the head coach, Trent Miles, who had 20 more years of experience.

Now that Minter has reached head coach status (“About time,” Baker said), he’ll have to do a lot more managing down as he brings together an entire staff and locker room. His word will have even more weight, but his steel backbone and negotiating skills will be needed in Baltimore, where the head coach is expected to go head-to-head with the general manager — in this case, a much more veteran executive in Eric DeCosta — as the two of them answer to owner Steve Bisciotti.

Forever a student

Named a college defensive coordinator before he turned 30, Minter had to lead a defense of players not much younger than him and a coaching staff that had coaches who were much more seasoned.

Minter was a rising coaching star, but he never turned that ego toward his team. “Humble, humble, humble” is how Vanderbilt defensive ends coach Jovan Haye described him.

And that humility has helped him remain a student of the game at every level.

The lessons started early, since Minter’s father was a college coach. When Minter was born, Rick Minter was the defensive ends coach at North Carolina State. He then worked his way up to defensive coordinator of Notre Dame and head coach of Cincinnati.

“Rick Minter is a legendary coach. He’s a wealth of information. He’s continued to grow with the game,” Volker said.

Despite the grind of the college season and the recruiting trail, Volker said he and Jesse Minter would go to every clinic available to them.

“He was smart enough to understand that if he doesn’t know everything, he’ll try to get the answer,” Williams said. “Or he’ll research the answer or he’ll ask someone.”

He’s taken something from everyone he’s worked with, Volker said, adding, “and probably eliminated things that he did not like from those people as well.”

Minter’s eagerness to learn was clear to players, as well.

“I think of him as someone who was constantly studying the game,” said Alex Bettag, one of Minter’s linebackers at Indiana State.

The players were often central to his quest for knowledge. Minter studied the game to figure out how to make each of his players better, Haye recalled, and he also studied the players themselves.

“He gets to know you first, try to figure you out,” Moore said. “And after that, he just tries to game manage pretty much based off that, tries to find different schemes and different ways to draw something up for pretty much everybody to go out there and eat.”

Your favorite teacher

Minter isn’t just good at imparting knowledge — he’s “elite” at it, Haye said. Which is critical when you’re coaching young men with varying egos and personalities.

At the beginning of his career, Minter’s ability to teach in meeting rooms and on the field gained him the respect of the players even though he was just a few years older than them, Volker said.

“They’re looking at you like, what the heck do you know?” Volker said. “But once you teach them that you can help them to improve and get better, they’re bought in.”

Minter was reserved, but he ran an intense practice. Yet players never worried he would chew them out.

“His coaching style was to put his arm around you when you mess something up and, number one, make sure that you understood what the mistake was before trying to fix something,” Bettag said.

Bettag was a linebacker while Minter was still the defensive backs coach at Indiana State, and he recalled teammate Alex Sewell, who played safety, “constantly talking about how good of a teacher Coach Minter was and how film study was always great.”

As a defensive coordinator, Minter kept his system easy to teach and to understand. Williams said at Georgia State, Minter used simple terminology and always had something for the players to relate it back to so they could understand it easily.

“A lot of defenses, they do a lot of things that just don’t make sense,” Baker said. “… But with Minter’s defense, there’s always a rhyme or reason. There’s always a check to a situation that maybe you didn’t expect, you didn’t see. And so it was very rare that you had to look to the side and say, ‘Hey, Coach, what should we do now?’”

Haye has been following Minter’s career closely, drawing influence from Minter’s defenses at Michigan and Los Angeles, and never stops being impressed. While Minter has won a college national championship and gone to the NFL playoffs, it was the NFL preseason where Haye saw Minter’s teaching skills shine through.

“Normally, the starters don’t play that much during preseason,” Haye said. “And I’ll be honest with you, man, you couldn’t tell from the second or third string. It’s like — I mean, it was unreal how much technique and how hard those guys played ... When the system is that strong, man, it’s plug and play, and there’s really no drop-off.”

The players’ understanding allowed them all to “eat,” Moore said. But Minter was always in control.

“He was always putting us in the right position,” Michigan defensive lineman Rayshaun Benny said. “Always two steps ahead of the offense, just as far as play-calling and knowing what to expect.”

Minter knew his scheme, and he knew his personnel, but he was also a master at timing, Lea said.

“That’s where he’s really good,” Lea said. “He’s really skilled at streamlining a call sheet before a game. It’s less about the volume of the right calls and more about the precision. It’s 50% what you do, and 50% how you do it.”

For as willing as his former colleagues and players were to give testimonials about Minter’s ability to teach, the undeniable proof is in the results. Minter’s success wasn’t limited to elevating already elite players. He brought out the best in everyone on the roster.

Former Ravens safety Tony Jefferson is a shining example. He was an undrafted free agent in 2013 who built a nine-year career before retiring in 2023. But in 2024, he came out of retirement and joined Minter’s defense in Los Angeles. He was nominated for AP Comeback Player of the Year in 2024 after playing eight games with 27 tackles. In 2025, at 33 years old, Jefferson played 13 games and made 57 tackles.

“He’s done it at every single spot,” Volker said. “Whether you’re a first-round draft pick or a five-star recruit or the guy at the bottom of the roster, he’s able to elevate their play to a man across the board.”

Leader of men

Fresh off a Senior Bowl practice in Mobile, Alabama, two years removed from playing for Minter at Michigan, Benny told reporters he thinks Minter will be a good coach for Baltimore.

Then he corrected himself.

“I know he’s going to be a good coach,” Benny said with conviction. Then he added a message for Ravens players: “You’re in good hands.”

Minter is known to be a cool character, but he inspires fire in his players.

“Anytime you can get grown men to start connecting and run through a wall for you ... it’s one of the hardest things to do,” Haye said. “But when you get young men to put aside their egos and attack what’s in front of them and play for a bigger cause, that’s when you know someone special. And he has that ability.”

Minter’s secret isn’t anything crazy: He cares, and he can make them better.

Bettag said Minter had an “open-door policy” at Indiana State. Peterson recalled Minter having the Georgia State players over for meals and treating them to the Cincinnati delicacy of Skyline Chili. Moore said that once Michigan players got to know Minter, he was really fun to be around. Baker added that it didn’t matter if you were a star or a depth player, you were going to get the same Minter.

“A lot of times you have coaches that kind of pick on certain guys and they’re not super fair to everyone,” Baker said. “I’d say he’s probably one of the most fair coaches across the board.”

He gave them his all, and in return, players wanted to give him their all, Benny said.

With his understanding of both the player and the person, Minter is able to reach every guy where he’s at, whether it’s an arm around the shoulder and a correction for Bettag or a “fix it” glare at Moore.

“Some people, the rah-rah doesn’t work for them,” Baker said. “For others, the rah-rah is like everything. And he didn’t try to apply that same method to everyone.”

His pregame speeches were the same. Sometimes he brought the passion. Sometimes he brought the logic. Either way, it had those around him thinking, “Man, I vibe with Coach,” Haye said.

Before working with Minter, Haye was a more emotionally driven coach. But after watching Minter, he adjusted to be calmer and more process driven.

“The moment is never too big for him,” Haye said. “... The cool thing about it is there is no chaos. He’s always in control. And what I’ve learned, too, especially from Coach Lea, is that guys are going to respond a lot of times to what is happening with their leader. And the moment is never too big. He always finds a way to get back to the middle. And that’s comforting, as a player, to be able to say, ‘Man, my leader is actually leading and not letting the emotions of the game get the best of them.’”

As a player, Peterson confirmed that Minter’s calm seeped into the players.

But just as he could still inspire fire in his players, the players could also bring out the fire in Minter.

“He’ll let the emotion out when the guys make big plays,” Williams said.

“He’s one of those coaches that comes with a lot of energy,” Baker said. “So you make a big play, he’s going to be one of the first people to pat you on the back and jump around with you.”

While Minter’s schemes have changed, his personality has not, except in one way — his swagger.

As someone who played for him a decade ago, Baker has seen Minter’s success and experience build his confidence, allowing him to reveal the competitor that lies underneath a reserved surface.

It will come out in his smirk on the sidelines, where he will continue to run the defense as the Ravens’ head coach. And perhaps, if he gets Baltimore’s roster performing at its full potential, fans will get to witness him waving goodbye to the Ravens’ rivals.

Banner reporter Jonas Shaffer and columnist Kyle Goon contributed to this story.