Over the next few weeks, Raiders.com is publishing a series of Q&As with the Silver and Black's position coaches.

Next up is wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni, who spent 18 years coaching at the collegiate level before entering the NFL ranks in 2017. He most recently coached the Pittsburgh Steelers for two seasons.

Here's a look into Azzanni's journey from playing wide receiver in the MAC to coaching in the desert.

Levi Edwards: What's the most valuable lesson you learned as a receiver at Central Michigan that's now helped you as a coach?

Zach Azzanni: "I think when you're an average player, which I was at best, you've got to figure out ways to make yourself different. You've got to know everything, to prove yourself every day. You've got to overachieve. You've got to use different techniques that a more talented guy might not have to use. And I think that helps you later on. I didn't know I wanted to get into coaching then, but it helps you later on."

LE: Considering you didn't know you wanted to get into coaching, what changed your mind that put you on that path?

ZA: "When I went to do my exit interview after my fifth year of playing, our head coach at the time, Dick Flynn, he said, 'What do you want to do?' I said, 'Coach, I'm not really sure. I've played sports since I could walk.' He's like, 'Have you ever thought about becoming a coach?' I said, 'I've never thought about it.' He said, 'Well, you're pretty much a coach out there now. You line people up, you know what to do, you know the scheme, you know it all. Something you should think about.'

"I didn't even know where to start, and he said, 'Well, you've got to become a GA [graduate assistant]' and so on and so forth and that's where I started."

LE: Fast forward to coaching at Central Michigan, you recruited a few future Pro Bowlers in Antonio Brown and Eric Fisher. How was that experience while winning three MAC Championships?

ZA: "Coming back 10 years from [being] a player to a coach, you obviously have a lot of passion in your alma mater. Being blessed to be able to find a guy like A.B. down in South Florida and being able to coach him – he had never played a snap of wide receiver in his life before we recruited him at Central Michigan. To be able to teach a guy like that from the ground up on how to play wideout and watching him go do what he did was pretty special.

"We had some really good players while I was a coach there. We were really blessed. I was blessed enough to find Eric Fisher, I recruited him. At the time, finding guys that needed to be developed. ... We had a lot of good players, which is why we were good coaches. Let's not get twisted."

LE: What's the biggest difference between coaching a college receiver versus an NFL receiver?

ZA: "My second job in Denver, I had a bunch of rookies who were 22 years old, and then I had Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders who were 30-plus and have done it all. Emmanuel had two kids and wife he was going home to where my rookies were going home and playing Fortnite after practice. So you have this big gap of life, but you have to coach them same but differently. Whereas in college, they're all the same age. They're 18-21. They're pretty much all in the same phase in their life. So that's the biggest different, you're still coaching the same ... you just approach them a little differently, but you're getting the same point across."

LE: You talk about coaching that age gap in the NFL, but you're now with a relatively young receiver room. What's the challenge that comes with that?

ZA: "I've been through it twice. When I was in Denver, two years in a row we had the youngest receiving corps in the NFL, which I love. I love the hungriness of these guys, there's no egos, there's no 'been there, done that' and too good to do the little things, and the great ones usually aren't anyway. But egos certainly get in the way in the NFL, and these guys have been great. They're blue collar, they're coming every day, they're working their tail off. They're taking coaching and that's what's cool about having a young, unproven group. They're smart enough to understand they've got a lot to prove, and so does their coach. And so together, we eat."

LE: I've noticed that have quite a few tattoos on your right arm, what's the meaning behind them?

ZA: "I got a half sleeve. I have four roses for my daughters, I have their names. I have a clock that has the time that I was born, but I have a candle and the wax is dripping down the clock. The idea of that is time is always ticking with my family, so make the most of your time with your kids raising them because time is dwindling and you never know how much time you have left. ... Then I have the coordinates of the 50-yard line at Central Michigan on there because that's where I proposed to my wife, on the 50-yard line. And then a compass. The compass is to remind me to keep my daughters on the right track, to keep them focused and moving forward the best I can as a father."