Nease High defensive coordinator Matt Toblin. (photo by Rob DeAngelo)

Matt Toblin is a true student of the game.

Nease High’s ebullient defensive coordinator scribbled more X’s and O’s than class notes as a student-athlete at Mandarin High.

“Most of my notebooks were filled with football plays,” the 1997 Mandarin graduate admitted during a preseason interview.

Toblin, 29, said he knew as far back as his sophomore year in high school that he wanted to be a football coach when he grew up.

The Jacksonville native spent hours in the Mandarin football office prodding coaches and poring over game film.

“He always wanted to know why a play worked or didn’t,” said Craig Howard, Toblin’s former football coach at Mandarin and his former boss at Nease.

“I’ve never seen anyone like him as a player. He spent more time in the coach’s office than the library.”

Toblin was an undersized senior defensive back at Mandarin when Howard became the head football coach there in 1996. Despite his lack of height, the 5-foot-7 Toblin started at strong safety for the Mustangs and was often assigned to cover the opposition’s top wide receiver in one-on-one situations.

“He was sharp. I put him on [former 6-4 Tallahassee Lincoln star] Boo Williams because I knew he would always be in the right spot,” Howard, now the head coach at district rival Columbia High, recalled.

Toblin hung on Howard’s sleeve as a senior, borrowing game tape of famous college matchups from Howard’s extensive video collection and breaking them down over the weekend.

“He would say, ‘Can I take this home and study it?’ ” Howard recalled. “He could take a picture and analyze it. He had that at an early age.”

After graduating from Mandarin, Toblin spent two seasons as a volunteer coach for the Mustangs, in charge of outside linebackers.

When Toblin went to Florida State University in 1999, he served as a student assistant to FSU wide receivers coach Jeff Bowden.

Eventually, Toblin helped coach freshmen wide receivers for the Seminoles before graduating with a social science degree.

He spent half a year at Stanton Prep coaching and teaching before taking his first full-time football coaching position at Orange Park High, where he coached running backs for Ron McCrone, now the defensive coordinator at Jacksonville University.

In 2003, Toblin took the offensive coordinator position at Fleming Island. Howard had taken over the Panthers program that year and teacher and student met for the first time on opposite sides of the field.

Nease won 50-9 behind Tim Tebow’s seven touchdowns. Toblin’s offense put up 200 rushing yards against the Panthers, making an impression with Howard’s staff.

A year later, Howard offered Toblin a job coaching defensive backs at Nease.

“They sold me on the idea. I thought it was too good to pass up and I was right,” said Toblin, now in his fifth season with the Panthers, his first as the defensive play-caller.

“Coach Howard was home to me.”

In 2004, Toblin joined an all-star staff at Nease that only got better as the years went on with the addition of former NFL coaches Bill Bates and Steve Walters.

In the classroom, he found a niche teaching IB American history and IB psychology, a course he says is “a rite of passage” among Panther football players.

“My relationship with players is really different in the classroom,” said Toblin. “That’s one of the reasons I stay at Nease. I get to interact with kids who are smart.”

Toblin had an opportunity to join Howard at Columbia, but  turned it down to stay at Nease, where the coaching staff borders on a brotherhood.

“It’s tough to win unless you have a group of coaches who love each other,” said Toblin.

“The coaches here are so efficient at their jobs. I’ve never been around a staff with so many qualified to be head coaches.”

Toblin said the coaching staff at Nease believes in working long hours and leaving no stone unturned leading up to game night.

Some breakdowns still haunt the staff, he said, like a certain screen play that went for a touchdown.

“To this day, we talk about that play,” added Toblin. “It’s like we’re cheating the players if we miss something after all the work we ask them to do.”

Toblin’s keen eye for detail has not been lost with his promotion to defensive coordinator.

He still watches the game “up top” in the press box, where he can scan the entire field and  relay split-second adjustments down to the sidelines.

It was a knack Howard first noticed about Toblin when he hired him at Nease.

“He has the ability to see all 22 players at the same time. He understands the big picture,”  Howard added.

Toblin said the past three seasons at Nease, where the Panthers won 13 of 15 playoff games and made three consecutive trips to the promised land, were like a “perfect storm” scenario where everything just clicked.

He said nationally ranked Booker T. Washington High was the best team Nease ever played during that 45-game stretch.

Toblin said he wishes the past three years at Nease “could go on forever,” but realizes that nothing lasts  that long.

“We still haven’t played that perfect game,” he said. “We want to keep the ball rolling.”