“It’s important that I share this with as many people as possible,” Roden said. “I wasn’t looking for a new job. I was in the weeds, getting ready to continue to improve Oak Hills High School and improve our goals.
“I believe God works in very mysterious ways.”
Jason Krause announced in May that he was retiring and stepping down as the head coach at Fairfield — where he spent the last 13 seasons — and Roden felt it was in his best interest to go after the position.
“The consensus amongst coaches in Cincinnati — and even college coaches — describes Fairfield as one of the higher-tier jobs in southwest Ohio,” Roden said. “It’s certainly up there. I had lots and lots of people reach out.
“Jason’s a great guy, and I’ve known Jason for a long time,” Roden added of Fairfield’s all-time winningest football coach. “He set the bar pretty high.
“I just think at the same time, people are excited for something new. So I’m really, really, really gracious and happy for the opportunity. But there’s obviously plenty of work to be done.”
Roden was named Fairfield’s football coach earlier this month, taking over a program that has gone 5-17 overall and 5-13 in the Greater Miami Conference the last two seasons.
Roden’s Highlanders beat the Indians each of the last two meetings after Oak Hills lost eight straight to Fairfield.
“I’ve asked the coaching staff here recently, and I said it very bluntly,” Roden noted. “‘How does a team with this much talent and all of the resources and the support lose to Oak Hills two years in a row?’
“I’ll be the first person to tell you as the coach at Oak Hills when we watched the film, Fairfield has had better players than us,” Roden added. “And we somehow found a way the last couple years to beat a team athletically superior.
“The answers from the staff and the kids that I’ve talked to were very sincere. They acknowledged, ‘We had some faults here and there. Maybe we did something schematically.’ There’s no blame on one person.”
Ultimately, Roden said he’s been in this position once before.
He’s been the guy to win a state championship, and he’s been the guy to lose 11 games in a season.
“I know both ends of that piece,” Roden said. “It’s good to step back and reflect and kind of attack the first thing that we need to address — which is the culture as a whole.
“The kids want to have to be here and trust each other — believe in the staff and trust what I’m doing.”
The background
Roden spent two seasons at Noblesville (Indiana) and helped Colerain win a state championship as a defensive backs coach.
Roden led East Central to a state runner-up finish in 2015 before winning the Class 4A title in 2017, the year he was named the Indiana Football Coaches Association 4A Coach of the Year. He was also a five-time Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
Roden went 16-37 overall as head coach at Oak Hills, which included a 13-28 record in GMC play. The Highlanders were 0-5 in postseason games under Roden, including a 28-0 loss at Hamilton to cap the 2024 stint.
Roden was named the GMC Coach of the Year in 2022.
“It was evident in 2022 when we 5-5, and I’m at the GMC meeting, and Scott Kaufman gives me a plaque for being coach of the year,” Roden recalled. “I’m shaking my head like, ‘For going 5-5?’ But the people in that room recognized where Oak Hills was at a few years ago to where it’s become from that standpoint.”
His experience and the transformation Oak Hills made under Roden’s leadership is what brought him to Fairfield.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Coach Justin Roden as the next head football coach at Fairfield High School,” Fairfield athletic director Aaron Blankenship said. “His championship pedigree, commitment to student-athlete development, and over two decades of coaching experience make him an exceptional fit for our program.
“Coach Roden’s proven leadership, both on and off the field, aligns with the values of Fairfield Football and our school community,” Blankenship added. “We’re excited for the future and confident he will continue to build on the strong foundation of excellence established here.
“No matter the time of year, whenever you are able to hire a Coach with the Championship background that Coach Roden has, you’re thankful and excited for the future of your program! Cannot say enough about how excited we are for the future of Fairfield Football and the impact that Justin will have on our student-athletes and community.”
Roden said one of his goals as Fairfield’s head coach is to improve the relationships at the younger levels.
“That’ll take some time,” he said. “That’s not just something you can go in and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to flip the switch at those levels.’ We want to make kids believe that this is the place to be.
“It’s an outstanding school academically. It’s got a great lineage of great football players,” Roden added. “You walk inside the coaches office and above the door there are four NFL football players within the last 15 years, and that is something to behold. So I think we’re going to start by improving those relationships, and we’re going to try to improve the culture.
“Everyone can say the word culture is used a bunch, but I think with a wholistic approach as far as just getting to know the kids and building that trust, and I think for us that’s going to take a little bit of time, but I feel really strongly with the mix of new coaches and some of the guys that stuck around. I feel good about that.”
Roden complimented the coaching staff that has recently been a part of the Fairfield program.
“Those guys have done such a good job of keeping this steadfast,” Roden said. “The work ethic of the kids is outstanding. You would not believe that this is a program that had only won a couple of games last year and just lost their coach. They’re not in disarray. They are very much working to a really high standard.
“I think that’s got me as excited as anything else. I’m not going in here to a disaster situation. This is more just taking the wheel here, putting in some fresh faces in some places and just starting from scratch.”
Blue-collar toughness
Roden took a trip down memory lane when Oak Hills went 0-10 in 2021 — his second season there.
He said his team had no business making the postseason that year, but the Highlanders did.
“We were asked to fill in to play in Week 11,” Roden said. “You can go around, and it would be really hard to find a team and a coach to play in Week 11 after losing 10 games — especially getting ready to play Moeller.
“But our kids were all about it. That year we didn’t have talent to be truly a competitive team in that conference. We did have a good spirit, and the kids did believe.”
Oak Hills lost 35-14.
“We shook hands with the Moeller kids, and we did earn a great deal of respect — which is all I could ask,” Roden said. “And I think that’s what carried over the next couple of seasons at Oak Hills.
“We were blue-collar and emulated a toughness and a competitive nature.”
Roden said he expects the same out of his Indians this season.
“I know the kids have a lot of scrappiness,” Roden said. “We’re not going to get outworked. We’re not going to be as flashy as some of the other people you’ll see in regard to social media and some of the bells and whistles. But we will — and I promise — be very well-coached with an attention to detail. Our kids will know what they’re doing, and I think that’s another big piece.
“The good news is that we’ve got some really freaking good players — some hungry kids,” Roden added. “We’re going to be talented. We’ve just got a lot of work to do in a short period of time.
“If the fans come out and enjoy the product regardless of what the end result is, they’re going to leave going, ‘Man, those kids played hard. Those kids represented that F on their helmet in a way that I can be proud of.’”
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