With Robb Akey: ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is the only thing I can control’

Robb Akey’s second game as interim head coach at Oregon State will be Saturday against Washington State at Reser Stadium

CORVALLIS — When Robb Akey arrived here last winter, the last thing he expected to become was Oregon State’s interim head coach.

Trent Bray was beginning his second season as the Beavers’ head coach and had asked Akey, a long-time acquaintance and family friend, to serve as a special assistant, with a focus on the defense.

Akey, a veteran of more than 35 years of coaching, had worked at Washington State with Trent’s father, Craig, and had recruited Bray at Wazzu before Trent decided to play his college ball at Oregon State.

Fast forward to October 12, the day athletic director Scott Barnes fired Bray after an 0-7 start and inserted Akey as the head man on an interim basis. Akey, 59, is 1-0 after a 45-13 pounding of Lafayette heading into Saturday’s 4:30 p.m. “Pac-2” matchup with Washington State at Reser Stadium.

Who is Akey the person? A family man, for one, married to wife Molly for 30 years. “She deserves a medal,” he says. Both of their sons — Jack, 29, and Daniel, 27 — are in Corvallis. Daniel came along as a special teams quality control analyst for the Beavers.

A Colorado Springs native, Akey was a fine athlete in his day, a three-sport athlete at Wasson High — an all-state tight end, the team captain and all-league in basketball, an all-league first baseman. He went on to success in football as a 6-4, 245-pound defensive end at Weber State, where under coach Mike Price he was All-Big Sky as a senior and the school record-holder for career sacks when he was done.

Affable, loquacious and throaty of voice, Akey sat down for an interview in his third-floor office in the Valley Football Center.

KE: When you took the interim head coaching position, you didn’t move into the head coach’s office. You stayed in the small office you share with Danny Langsdorf, with no windows, no frills. Why?

RA: We are all in this together. That ain’t for me right now. I just didn’t think that was necessary.

KE: You and younger brother Todd were born and raised by parents John and Doreen in Colorado Springs. What did your parents do?

RA: They were both teachers. Dad was a high school science teacher, Mom an elementary school teacher. When Todd came along, she became a stay-at-home mom. Dad was a coach at one time. He ran the planetarium in Colorado Springs and worked at the rival high school.

KE: Do you consider yourself the second-best athlete ever to play at Weber State?

RA: (Laughs) Who was better?

KE: Damian Lillard.

RA: He was pretty good, but he played that other game. If there’s no point to the ball, there’s no point to the game.

KE: Have you met Damian?

RA: We have not met. Great athlete, though. I give him a lot of credit for what he went through to get to the top of his profession.

KE: How was it to play for Mike Price at Weber?

RA: It was awesome, and I am sure getting to play for him is a reason why I am doing what I am doing today. We had a blast when we played there. When you go to college, you think you know what you’re going to do with your life after college, but that can change a lot during those four or five years you have to figure things out. When I first went there, I thought I was going to get into the health world as a physical therapist or personal trainer. That didn’t get along real well with me when I started the school stuff. Then I got it figured out that coaching was what I wanted to do. Now I couldn’t imagine my life without football. I had talked with (Price) going into my senior year, and I told them that’s what I wanted to do. After the season ended, I started working for him as assistant line coach.

The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

KE: Did you try to get into any NFL training camps after your senior year?

RA: I was realistic. I had a good college career and was a good Big Sky player, but it is a little different breed in the NFL. I had a coaching opportunity, and I figured I didn’t need to put that off. I stepped right into it.

KE: As a grad assistant to start, and then coaching the defensive line and special teams.

RA: I worked under Mike Zimmer, whom I had played for and later became head coach of the (Minnesota) Vikings. Andre Patterson was the other assistant D-line guy; he is now D-line coach for the (New York) Giants. We all worked together with the Vikings. Coach Price made it fun. Everything we did was a blast, and I learned a lot about being positive and getting things done. There are a lot of things I have taken from it that have helped me.

KE: From 1999-2006 you served as D-line coach for Price, and then D-coordinator for Bill Doba, at Washington State. Are they major influences in your coaching career?

RA: Absolutely true. Two great people, great coaches, great individuals. We talk a lot to this day. I talked to Doba last night.

KE: Your last year with Price at Wazzu was 2002, when you went 10-3 but lost to Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl. That season you had Outland Trophy winner Rien Long, and your defense had 55 sacks.

RA: We did that again the next year when we went to the Holiday Bowl. That defense had 55 sacks going into the Holiday Bowl. We ended up being No. 1 in the country.

KE: That season, your first with Doba, you went 10-3 again and beat Texas in the Holiday Bowl. And you led the nation in takeaways with 48 and fumble recoveries with 24.

RA: From what I understand, that takeaway record hasn’t been beaten yet.

KE: That sacks number is mind-boggling. Oregon State’s defense has eight in eight games this season.

RA: We have to be in there on more plays. That’s what our focus is on now, to help these guys help themselves to make as many plays as they can make, to make more this week than they did the last time, and build off the previous deal. That’s why I said last week it was important to see the guys win and come off the field with a smile. They played more free as the game wore on. Maybe some of the weight of the world got off their shoulders a bit, but they experienced making more plays. That is our challenge moving forward. If we continue making more plays, then those numbers are going to grow.

KE: You were head coach at Idaho from 2007-12. What were those six years like? It was a tough place to win for a long time. When you were there you were in the Western Athletic Conference with schools such as Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada. Idaho had two winning seasons in a 21-year period after the turn of the century. You had one of them when you went 8-5 in 2009, then went 6-7 the next season with close losses to Colorado State (36-34) and Fresno State (23-20).

RA: I was the fourth head coach in five years when I came in. All the kids had experienced was change, and we went in and changed some more. But they responded, and we won a bowl game the third year, and we were one play away from back-to-back bowls, which had never happened in the program’s history. Colorado State kicked a field goal on the last play to beat us, and Fresno State scored with 11 seconds left to beat us. It was fun until it wasn’t. We put a plan together, and it worked, but we needed to be able to sustain it.

KE: You coached D-line for three seasons in the NFL from 2014-16 — one with the Vikings and two with the Washington Redskins. How was that?

RA: It was a great experience. I was on Coach Zimmer’s first staff with the Vikings. It was fun being in on the ground floor of getting the program put together. It was instructive, the dynamics that go into all that and how we made it fit. There is a lot that goes into putting the whole thing on.

When I went to the Redskins, Joe Barry (currently linebackers coach for the Dolphins) was the defensive coordinator. We had coached together at Northern Arizona. We won our division our first year and went to the playoffs, so there was a lot of cool stuff happening there. And it was a chance to experience another organization. That’s the thing with the NFL. Every organization does it differently. I wouldn’t change it for the world. We had a great crew of coaches (the head coach was Jay Gruden; among the assistants were Sean McVay, Bill Callahan and Matt Cavanaugh).

KE: You spent seven years coaching for Jim McElwain — first at Florida, then at Central Michigan (2019-24). What was that like?

RA: We had known each other a long time. When I was at Weber State, he was at Eastern Washington. We were film exchange coaches. That’s how we got to know each other. Guys in that job in those years took pride in the fact we could get the film anywhere in the country if you put your mind to it. We had a six-year run together at Central Michigan. We took a team that had won one game the year before and played in the (Mid-American) conference championship our first year. We made bowl games our first two (full) seasons, and beat Washington State in the Sun Bowl (in 2021), which was kind of nice.

KE: McElwain retired after the 2024 season, and shortly thereafter you came to Oregon State as a special assistant to Trent. How did that come about?

RA: Mac had retired, I was back on the market. I have known Trent and his family for a long time. He was making some changes here and asked if I would be interested in being a part of it, and I was. We had a couple of conversations. You end up having a lot of conversations when you are out of work. It’s a necessity.

KE: When did you learn that Trent had been let go?

RA: Sunday morning (October 12). I was in the office watching film and they told me. Not what I expected to have happen.

KE: You had also gone through a midseason dismissal — at Idaho in 2012 after a 1-7 start. So you had some empathy for Trent.

RA: I felt awful for him. I know how it feels. It is not a good feeling. I understood what he was going through.

KE: What were your thoughts after getting the win over Lafayette in your first game?

RA: To see the players smiling after the game … that was my reward. They were excited, and they needed to be excited. That was the big thing. Now it’s a matter of, if you can do it one time, can you do it all the time? That’s the challenge. Our coaching staff is excited to see the kids have success. They had a good time doing it. We have four more opportunities. Let’s go do what we can with them. If you win the right two, you get to be the conference champion.

KE: You made the decision to move Danny Langsdorf into the O-coordinator and play-calling role. Why?

RA: We were trying to find a way to make things happen. Just switching things up a little bit. It doesn’t mean anything about anybody.

KE: Are you interested in becoming the Beavers’ head coach full-time?

RA: One of my goals is to be a head coach again. That doesn’t have anything to do with what is happening now. We have a responsibility to take care of these players and help them play as well as possible. The coaches are in the same boat. The players have to do well so they either get invited to stay or are invited to go someplace in the portal. And we are coaching our tails off to hopefully be invited to stay. But if not, maybe somebody says, “Hey, come do it for us.” It’s the nature of what we’re in right now. We are united with these guys going forward.

KE: Has Scott indicated that you are a candidate for the OSU job?

RA: I’m not going to answer that one.

KE: Last week’s bye would typically be a chance for coaches to get out on the road and do some recruiting. Are your coaches recruiting, not knowing what the future holds?

RA: Yes. Absolutely. We had coaches out, and they saw games. We have good players committed to Oregon State, and we have a commitment to them, too, and to the program itself.

KE: You alluded to the fact that you have a chance to clinch at least a tie for the Pac-12 title with a win over Washington State Saturday. Over the last month, the Cougars have beaten Colorado State and Toledo and lost close games to top-15 teams Ole Miss and Virginia.

RA: They are a good team. They just played real tough against two of the best teams in the country. They have our respect. It is going to be a challenge. We are going to have to get after it.

KE: Who will be your starting quarterback Saturday?

RA: You’ve seen us play.

KE: It looks to me as if Gabarri Johnson will be your starter.

RA: Does it? Well, like I said last week, I like both of our quarterbacks (Johnson and Maalik Murphy). I like the way they work together. We are going to continue to do it the way we have been doing it. We are going to keep moving forward.

KE: With four more games left on the schedule, what are your goals for the rest of the way?

RA: To see these guys smile every chance we get. If we can help them get better every day, that’s good. If we can help them experience success, that’s a good thing. We have to pay attention to one day at a time. That’s the way we are coaching it, and that is the only way I know how to coach in this situation.

I said it in one of our team meetings: Life is how you choose to see it. You can make it be what you want it to be. We are going to pay attention to what we can control. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is the only thing I can control. If we can pay attention to the little things and build through the week, we will be the best team we can be when game day rolls around. Play by play by play throughout the game ... that’s the way we’re approaching it the rest of the season. Our goal is by the day, by the minute, by the play, to be honest with you.

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