Coaches at all tiers of sport strive to create an environment that fosters chemistry.
Joshua Bell understands the term better than most.
Bell — the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Defensive Co-ordinator — majored in chemistry at Baylor University.
Although test tubes, Bunsen burners and the periodic table may seem to be far removed from the gruelling gridiron game, a chemist’s mindset can be immensely beneficial from a coaching perspective.
“Without a doubt,” Bell stated. “It has never changed.
“We even talk about flowing like water, because everything has to go together. The chemistry of things has to be right.
“As a position coach, you never know what you need to be in that room for those guys to hear you and get the message, or to be their guy for them to reach their level of greatness.
“Especially as a co-ordinator, it would be the same. You don’t know what you need to be for your guys in certain moments, so it comes down to that — chemistry — and being what is needed.
“You can’t always be salty. Some days, you can’t always be sweet. You need different compositions of different people and different makeups.
“There are so many variables and factors that go into winning a game, winning a practice and even winning a rep, so that chemistry is always in football. It has never failed.”
Success is a signature for Bell, who in November celebrated a championship for the fifth time in his pro football career.
As a defensive back, he was a member of two title-winning teams — the 2010 Green Bay Packers and 2014 Calgary Stampeders.
He has since been a part of a Grey Cup champion as the Defensive Backs coach with Calgary (2018), the Toronto Argonauts (2022) and the Roughriders (2025).
After two seasons as Saskatchewan’s Defensive Backs Coach and Pass Game Co-ordinator, Bell was named the Defensive Co-ordinator on Jan. 9. Head Coach Corey Mace was the defensive play-caller for two seasons before handing the reins to Bell.
Like Mace, Bell played on defence for Calgary before making a seamless transition into a coaching capacity with the Stampeders and continuing to thrive in other environs.
“This is just the process that we’ve always seen,” Bell said. “It’s just about continuing to learn and continuing to grow.”
Ensuring that Bell continues to be a Roughrider was a priority for Mace.
“Many teams would want Joshua Bell to be their Defensive Co-ordinator and it’s something that wasn’t a secret for myself or Josh,” Mace told reporters shortly after Bell, 41, was promoted.
“It’s something that we talked about and we certainly have been prepping Josh and pushing Josh to prep for taking that next step, and working hand-in-hand with him over the last couple years in doing so, it was just his time.”
What does that signify for Bell?
“It’s time to work,” he said. “It’s time to learn this. It’s time to stand in this position. (Past experiences) have led to this moment.”
The objective is to maximize each moment, with three-plus months remaining before Bell will call his first play as a Defensive Co-ordinator during a regular-season game.
“I haven’t even looked that far ahead,” he said, chuckling.
“Calling plays and being a Defensive Co-ordinator in a game is just a thing. It’s like it’s your turn to play on Madden, right? It’s your turn to make all the calls and make a selection of what’s going to be run on this play.
“I think it’s bigger (than one person). Maybe at a different stage of life, you think of it as, ‘Me, me, me,’ but going throughout our process, I know that there’s a lot of things before it comes down to who pushes the button.
“It’s an honour, more than anything. It’s a major honour to be the one to be able to make a call in the moment. You feel that you’re trusted to be called on to do such a thing.
“But there are a lot of guys’ hands in making those plays. I’m just excited to be able to be the guy to pull the trigger but, more than anything, to be in that position you have to be one of the best teammates in the world.”
Which brings us back to chemistry …
“I’m excited to learn about my coaches that I work with even more, because I want to make sure I know their minds a little bit and that we mesh minds so well that, on game day, we think almost the same way,” Bell said in reference to coaching collaborators Travis Brown (Linebackers Coach, Run Game Co-ordinator), Micah Johnson (Defensive Line Coach) and Jordan Linnen (Defensive Backs Coach).
“It’s kind of like where we Double Dutch thoughts at a certain time. You learn how to co-operate with each other through pre-snap tendencies. You learn to work so well in a rhythm, almost like an F1 team.
“Guys know when to talk to you in certain pockets, because they know when you’re thinking at a peak and when not to disturb you. It’s so cool.
“I’ve been honoured to be in a position to help Corey play-call, so I’m excited to kind of be in that cockpit now, working with my teammates.
“You’ve got to do everything at the perfect time to get exactly what you want. That is the exhilarating part — the work that goes into being so well-oiled together that on game day it’s so fluid.”
Such excellence in execution helped Saskatchewan allow the fewest points (409) in the league during the 2025 regular season.
The year before, the Roughriders were the CFL’s runaway leader in turnover differential (plus-26) with Mace as the chief defensive strategist — a role that has now been bestowed upon Bell.
“I’m so excited to see myself (in that position), because you can always project or think what you would like to do,” said Bell, who has been a teammate or coaching colleague of Mace’s on three Grey Cup-winning teams.
“Even in the past couple of months, I’ve had so many different thoughts and approaches to even calling a game. I’m calling games as I’m watching film, just giving myself that practice.
“Some days I’m aggressive. Some days I’m passive. I think you have feelings. You have thoughts. And then you go to the table again with your teammates and you say, ‘I’m feeling like this. What do you think?’ Sometimes your guys say, ‘No, coach … no!’ Or they’ll say, ‘Yeah, let’s go! I like that, too!’
“Or, sometimes the practice will tell you something. You go in thinking, ‘I want to be aggressive,’ but it just didn’t mesh well that week or we didn’t get enough reps. It’s this, this and this …
“I know that the flavour is going to be a little different. The seasoning might be a little different between Corey and Joshua Bell, but throughout our Grey Cup wins together we’ve learned that you usually call what your players can run and what they feel good about executing. You usually rely on them, regardless of what you want to do.
“It usually comes down to, ‘What can the guys grasp and what can they execute at a high level?’ ”
Want to talk about high-level pressure? How about having less time than it takes to type this paragraph to decide on a defensive play call between snaps?
There isn’t time for indecisiveness, hesitation or second-guessing in the midst of a fast-flowing CFL game. But the pace, which can seem frenetic from an outsider’s perspective, is second nature to those who are habitually immersed in a game.
“That 20 seconds (between plays) is just something we’ve been doing for a long time, since I was honoured to be a member of the B.C. Lions and the Calgary Stampeders and the Toronto Argonauts and, now, the Saskatchewan Roughriders,” Bell said. “We’ve been dealing with that same 20 seconds. No problem.
“Just trust your guys. Work as hard as you can during the week so you keep getting that 20 seconds over and over again, so by the time you get to the game day, that 20 seconds seems like an eternity.”
Twenty years have elapsed — seemingly in no time — since Bell was excelling at Baylor University, both on the field and in the classroom.
As a student-athlete in Waco, Texas, he developed an advanced comprehension of how chemistry and football can work in tandem. Similarities were noted during practices, meetings and games. Did the comparisons carry over into, say, a chemistry lab?
“Not so much,” Bell said with a laugh. “You’d better pay attention to what you’re doing before some hydrochloric acid is streaming down your fingers.”