Coaches and educators are often one and the same. Many times in football lore, the greatest coaches have come from a purely academic environment. For one Hamilton Tiger-Cats assistant coach, the lessons learned along his journey have in hindsight become the driving force to reaching his destination.

Dennis McPhee began his coaching career as auspiciously as one could. Following graduation from St. Mary's University in Halifax, McPhee returned to his hometown of Hamilton, quickly becoming the defensive line coach at McMaster University. Over the next decade, McPhee bounced around the Canadian university coaching scene passing down his defensive knowledge to willing amateur pupils at Guelph and St. Francis Xavier in Nova Scotia.

Following his decade of university experience, McPhee would go on to have a stint coaching the Tiger-Cats at both the linebacker and defensive line positions. Under McPhee's tutelage in his early coaching days with the black and gold, the Ticats led the CFL in quarterback sacks in 1999, 2000 and 2004. He helped Tiger-town legend, defensive end Joe Montford be named the CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player three times, and six players under McPhee's leadership earned spots on the CFL All-Star team.

No matter where he has coached, McPhee has left a trail of opposing quarterbacks on the ground in his students' wake. His attention to detail and vocally apparent emphasis on the miniscule details of defensive line pass rushing could lead the casual fan to believing McPhee is a possessed barbarian with a thirst for violence. In reality, what sets McPhee apart in the war of pass rushing supremacy is his academic approach to the game.

"It's a science, you have to learn that science and people used to say playing defensive line is taking two steps and throwing a fit, well that's not what it is anymore. It's refined, almost martial art-like and we work every day to improve our craft".

Each day at training camp this year, the receivers and defensive backs work their way through a pass skeleton script. An 8-on-8 display of agility which has increasingly begun to resemble a touch football practice. Meanwhile, McPhee's men engage in battle at the far end of the field. His 2015 class tested each repetition on their cognitive retention of the grizzled veteran coaches lessons.

"It's the thing that I like to teach the most".

After attending a Tiger-Cats practice, anyone within earshot would be hard pressed to disagree. The growling McPhee sets the tone in pass rush 1-on-1s daily from the first rep to the last. Asking McPhee to explain his approach to the period reveals the professor of punch brings more to the table than presented at first glance.

"We work hard at our get-offs, our initiations and consolidations. We teach a skill-set whether it's an initial charge and an escape or something else. We really study our opponent. We study our own offensive lineman to see who is an aggressive short-setter, a passive resister, a jump-setter, a kick-slide guy, a knee leader, an ankle leader".

Perhaps the best part of McPhee's audible coaching style is that it applies to more than just the negative. He applauds his students with the same veracity as when he disciplines them. That attitude of equal praise and pension has been a lesson learned, not taught by McPhee throughout his coaching career. The keynote address of this course in humility came in the closing days of his employment at the University of Waterloo.

Between his second and now third tour of service with the Hamilton defence, McPhee was the head coach of the University of Waterloo Warriors football team. Yes, that Warriors team. The one suspended by the University of Waterloo, punishing all for the sins of a few.

Nine of 63 players either tested positive, admitted to steroid use or refused to be tested. An investigation revealed the small group of players had poisoned the healthy culture McPhee aimed to bring to the struggling Warrior football program during his five years as the head man.

The banned substance issue was out of McPhee's reach, but not out of his jurisdiction. He 'resigned', pushed out due to his assumed responsibility to protect his players from taking the sharp left turn down performance-enhancing drug avenue.

That experience led McPhee into what he has made widely known as one of the darker times in his life, coaching or otherwise. The lessons learned during the following year - which he spent as defensive coordinator at Western University - helped to create the coach the Ticats welcomed back in 2013; the loud, honest, quietly scientific defensive line coach with a love for the game and knowledge far beyond his age.

With every snap during pass rush 1-on-1s, Dennis McPhee gets another chance to teach, another gridiron breath to prolong his football life, and another chance to make lifelong connections with the players and coaches he lives to bring together.

"Everybody (in Hamilton) is very competitive and wants to win. They're (offensive line) protecting their territory and we're trying to acquire that territory; it gets physical and violent and it's a violent game played by violent men but when it's done, it's really neat the relationship the players have."

Dennis McPhee has seen the good and bad at all levels of Canadian football. What remains is his passion for pass rushing education and seamless execution. When mixed with McPhee's consistent message of humility, hard work and attention to detail, you get the 2015 Hamilton Tiger-Cats pass rush; a group with the potential to be devastatingly educated.

Marshall Ferguson, a former McMaster quarterback, covers the Tiger-Cats for Classic Hits 1150 CKOC in Hamilton - the future home of TSN Radio 1150. His CFL blogs and podcasts can be read and heard weekly on TSN.ca.