Coaching football was always in Josh McDaniels’ blood.

Journal / Bob Breidenbach

FOXBORO — Josh McDaniels caught the coaching bug early.

His father Thom, the current head coach at Massillon (Ohio) Jackson High School, was a longtime head coach at McKinley High in Canton, Ohio, where Josh went to school.

Through his father, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator learned a passion for coaching at a young age.

“I saw all the regards that my father had from it as a coach himself,” McDaniels said. “I went to college, and I kind of had my eye on that the whole time, and I felt like that was the direction I was going to go in.”

“Just using the experience that I saw my father have, it looked like the way I wanted to go with my life, and that’s kind of why I delved into the coaching profession, to start with,” McDaniels said.

McDaniels said he doesn’t know what he would be doing if it weren’t for coaching.

“I majored in math in college for no other reason than I was good in math,” said McDaniels, who went to John Carroll University, where he was a wide receiver for the Blue Streaks. “[Coaching] is what I had my eye on, really, the whole time.”

At first he thought he would be a high school coach like his father. He said he never dreamed he would be coaching in the NFL.

“I wanted to be a graduate assistant and then move on to some level,” said McDaniels, who has been coaching for eight years. “[I] never dreamed it would be this one.”

Nick Saban gave McDaniels his first coaching job at Michigan State in 1999 as a graduate assistant. He made the leap from the college ranks to the pros in 2001 when he was hired by New England as a personal assistant/coaching assistant. He quickly expanded his role to include film breakdown and scouting preparation for the defensive coaching staff. He became a full-time coaching assistant in February of 2002. His role included breaking down film and scouting chart preparations for the defensive staff. In 2003, he had additional responsibilities working with the defensive backs.

McDaniels was promoted to quarterbacks coach in 2004. He worked with Tom Brady to help him produce the highest passer rating of Brady’s career (92.6) and the second-highest single-season passer rating in team history.

He continued to work with Brady in 2005, and helped him raise his game to another level. Brady led the NFL in 2005 with a career-best 4,110 passing yards, the second-highest total in Patriots history.

Last season, McDaniels was promoted to offensive coordinator. New England head coach Bill Belichick said McDaniels has been successful as an offensive coordinator because of the experience he had breaking down film and scouting players.

“I think every day is a challenge,” McDaniels said about being offensive coordinator. “Every week is different. That’s really the interesting thing about it, and it’s probably the most challenging thing about it. Each week you come in and what you did to beat the team last week or what you did to try to win the game two weeks ago doesn’t necessarily have an application this week because this team or this defense is totally different. You have to evaluate their players every week and try to find the weaknesses and the strengths of your team and use those to the best of your ability.

“The challenging thing about it is you’re never really sure how somebody is going to play you from one week to the next,” McDaniels added. “You prepare and you know what they’ve done, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what they are going to do against you that day.” McDaniels said sometimes the game plan has to be changed based on how the defense is playing them. It’s because of that that McDaniels has had to learn how to make changes on the fly.

“Based on what the team does, you might have to go with an instinct or a gut feeling and say, ‘What we planned on doing or what we tried to do in that situation might not be the best thing to do,’ and you call something different and you hope your guys are prepared well, which we have been, for the most part, and able to adjust on the run,” McDaniels said.

McDaniels said working with a quarterback as talented as Brady makes his job a lot easier.

“If we have an idea that we feel is going to work and be successful, he understands why pretty fast,” McDaniels said. “I think we’re fortunate to have him be the guy in the huddle and make sure that everybody else is on the same page as we are. He’s usually pretty quick to adjust and adapt to what we’re doing.”

McDaniels said he has only about 10 to 15 seconds to call a play and get the right personnel in the game. He said the players and the rest of the coaching staff are good at adjusting quickly to game situations.

roblee@projo.com