Reilly Christie watched his life make a major transition in a matter of less than 48 hours. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts on a Saturday, packed up his apartment on a Sunday and was on the road to Dallas that following Monday.

That happened in 2017. Three years later, Christie is now a defensive graduate assistant for the SMU Mustangs, working alongside defensive coordinator Kevin Kane, head coach Sonny Dykes and the rest of the staff.

Quickly turning pages to different chapters is nothing new for Christie, who came to SMU after spending four seasons at UMass working as an student assistant. He went to the first UMass home football game as a fan; he attended the second UMass home game as a student member of the coaching staff.

Christie, at 25 years old, has the story of a go-getter, someone with experience in an NFL organization and someone who continues to rise in his young career. Christie's bio can be seen via SMU Football, and he is the latest feature in The HillTopics' weekly "Coach Q&A" series. Christie discusses a variety of topics in and away from football.

You worked with the Kansas City Chiefs. From a coaching perspective, what was that experience like for you?

I got the chance to be there as a summer intern. It was a great experience. It wasn't coaching, unfortunately, but it was more operations. Still, it was a great opportunity. I got to go out there and really see how an NFL team operated. With the communication and organization, I had a good feeling of how an NFL operated, but going there and actually seeing it was a whole different world. You hear all those stories about how things go with the NFL, and it's true. It was really a great experience. I was really fortunate to be able to do that.

Now that you're with SMU, you're getting a chance to do what you love to do. You're also working with defense. What is it about this year's defense that makes you and the rest of the coaches excited about the 2020 season?

We've got a lot of good guys coming back. We obviously lost some production with guys like Rodney Clemons, Delontae Scott and Pono Davis, but we have some leaders coming back. We have guys who just love football. They want to be here, they want to be out on the field, and they want to be in the classroom learning the playbook and watching film. That gets us really excited. When guys are watching film on their own and are texting us questions that we hadn't asked them, that gets us fired up. We know that they're locked in. We love being around them, and we can't wait to get back around them.

We've been away from them for a little bit, but with the uncertainty of everything, they've handled it like true professionals. [Defensive line] Coach [Randall] Joyner always says not to panic and to trust your training. All of our players throughout this time have been trusting their training and not panicking. We know these guys love football and want to be here, and they're doing everything they can to be here.

With the pandemic, from a coach's eye, what has preparation been like as we enter the summer? Is it more frustration? More fear of the unknown? More disappointment?

The first thing is obviously going to be the safety of our players and the safety of our coworkers and everybody we work with. You want everybody to be safe and come back in a safe and timely manner. On the defensive side, we always talk about sudden change. Sometimes, there will be a turnover on the other side of the ball, or on special teams, they'll get a really good return, and we're in the red zone. Whatever happens, happens, and we have to just focus on what we can control. That's all we've been doing.

We're just focusing on being able to meet with our guys through Zoom and being able to perfect our playbook as close as we can. It's obviously safety first, but we just control what we can control. We make sure we are maximizing what we can do and controlling what we can control.

You graduated from UMass and was a student assistant coach. Tell us about your very first coaching experience, whether paid or unpaid.

My first experience was all the way back in high school. My father was a high school wrestling coach, and I got injured my junior year to where I wasn't able to compete that season. I kind of served as an assistant coach with the wrestling team then. That was my first act of coaching.

When I got to UMass, the first week I was there, I went to the UMass football game as a fan; the second home game, I went there as a staff member of the football team. That was more on the operations side, and then I worked my way into equipment, then got into strength and conditioning. The second half of my sophomore year, I got into the coaching side and worked as an offensive assistant working with the running backs. I was a student assistant for about three years. I graduated on a Saturday, I packed up my apartment on a Sunday, and that Monday, I drove to Dallas as a volunteer for the 2017 season under Coach [Chad] Morris.

As a defensive assistant, you're spending a lot of time with Sonny Dykes, as well as Kevin Kane. What have you learned most from those guys?

They're two great mentors. It's been a pleasure and an honor to work for those guys, and I wouldn't want to work for anyone else. With Coach Kane, it's about having a plan, making sure you're being meticulous. There's no detail too small, no task too small. He's going to make sure we watch film and make sure our plays match up to everything. I really respect him for that. He's a phenomenal coach but an even better person. He's been a great mentor to me and all the other younger coaches. He's also a great father and great husband.

That's what you want, great men in your building, and that's what Coach Dykes has done a phenomenal job of doing. You want great football coaches, but you also want really great men, people you want your significant other or family to be around. It's a very large family atmosphere here. You always see kids running around here, and that's been office.

That's one thing Coach Dykes has taught me: Football is football, and it's important as our livelihood, but the most important thing is family. That makes us all want to work for him that much harder, because he's always taking family into account. He wants us to obviously do our job and get our work done, but he also wants us to get home to our families to where we have a life outside of football.

If coaching wasn't in the cards, what would Reilly Christie be doing with his life?

That's a good question. Coaching has consumed my life for going on nine years now. I would love to still do something with sports, probably something along the lines of being a sports agent or working in sports law. I went to UMass as a sports management major. They have one of the better programs in the country, which was one of the reasons why I went there. I took some law classes, so those classes and sports have always interested me and made me want to learn more. Probably something in the sports law/sports agent arena.

TRACKING THE HILLTOPICS' COACH Q&A SERIES

Feb. 16: Co-offensive coordinator/OLs coach AJ Ricker

Feb. 23: Co-offensive coordinator/QBs coach Garrett Riley

March 1: Defensive coordinator/LBs coach Kevin Kane

March 8: DLs coach Randall Joyner

March 15: TEs coach Josh Martin

March 22: WRs coach David Gru

March 29: Safeties coach Trey Haverty

April 5: RBs coach Ra'Shaad Samples

April 12: CBs Kevin Curtis

April 19: Director of recruiting relations and community engagement Scott Nady

April 26: Assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Chris Brasfield

May 3: Assistant director of football operations Bret Grant

May 10: Offensive analyst Hunter McWilliams

May 17: Assistant director of player personnel Joe Grilz

May 24: Director of recruiting operations Tyler Olker

Today: Defensive graduate assistant Reilly Christie