Some college football coaches are barely older than players. Can this work?
Every morning, Winston DeLattiboudere walks into the same facilities and meeting rooms he stalked as a student-athlete and goes to work.
In 2019, DeLattiboudere was a senior defensive lineman and team captain who helped Minnesota win a modern-era program-record 11 games and finish No. 10 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. Just four years later, he’s set to enter his second season as the Golden Gophers’ defensive line coach, making him one of the youngest assistants in the Power Five and an outlier in a profession that leans much older on college football’s highest level of competition.
“This is going to be my job and my profession,” he said. “And I truly believe that God put me on this Earth to do this.”
DeLattiboudere, 25, is one of the leading examples of the Football Bowl Subdivision’s most unique group of assistant coaches: those who graduated or concluded their college careers since 2018.
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More than a 'big brother'
In a profession that has typically rewarded experience but has started to lean younger − seven first-year head coaches hired this winter are under 40 years old − this small group of twentysomething coaches has skipped what has traditionally been years of apprenticeship and cut directly to the front of the line to become full-time FBS assistants.
“I’m viewed as a big brother, but I also want to paint the picture that I’m a role model and a mentor, too,” said Central Michigan quarterbacks coach Jake Kostner, 26. “I have my whole life to keep learning, keep figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The mindset of acknowledging that goes a long way. Yeah, I am young, but we’re all in this profession together.”
Of the 1,330 FBS assistant coaches, only 18, or 1.3%, graduated or concluded their playing careers during this time frame. The 18 coaches include:
Five in the Power Five, with four at Big Ten programs: DeLattiboudere, Purdue linebackers coach Joe Dineen, Wisconsin running backs coach Devon Spalding, Nebraska wide receivers coach Garrett McGuire and Central Florida running backs coach Kam Martin.
Three who coach quarterbacks: Kostner, Miami (Ohio) assistant Gus Ragland and North Texas assistant Sean Brophy.
Five currently working at their alma maters in DeLattiboudere, Ragland, Louisiana Tech running backs coach Teddy Veal, Boise State edge coach Jabril Frazier and Georgia State tight ends coach Dan Ellington.
Two coaches, Kostner and East Carolina inside receivers and tight ends coach Aaron Auer, who didn’t play in college and instead served as student assistants while undergraduates at Michigan and Georgia, respectively.
And McGuire, 24, a former Baylor walk-on wide receiver and the son of Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire, is the youngest full-time FBS assistant and the only one to finish his college career after 2019.
Connections are key
To get here so quickly, these coaches had to overcome the hurdle of flimsy résumés yet to be beefed up by the path trod by a generation of college coaches: working at least two years a graduate assistant or a quality control staffer, stepping onto the field at a smaller school and then eventually working up to an FBS program.
Unsurprisingly, then, half of these 18 assistants had a previous connection with their current program’s head coach.
After serving as the on-and-off starting quarterback for Eric Morris at Incarnate Word in 2018 and 2019, Brophy was one of Morris’ first hires at North Texas this past winter.
"At the end of the day, you need to go in and work and do a great job and they’ve got to feel comfortable giving you this responsibility," Brophy said. "But it would be ignorant for me to say I wouldn’t be here without those connections. That’s just part of the profession. Everybody realizes that. But it’s also about when you get those opportunities, what you do with them."
Ellington was Georgia State’s quarterback in 2018 and 2019 under Shawn Elliott and moved into a permanent role as the Panthers’ running backs coach one month after ending his playing career.
“Let me clear about this: I didn’t give him this opportunity, he earned it,” Elliott said of Ellington, who played the final month of his senior season with a torn ACL and led Georgia State to the postseason. “He laid everything on the line for our football program and our university, and I thought it was only fitting that we did the same thing.”
Seeing potential over lack of experience
Whether because of this preexisting relationship or the recommendation of a colleague, the head coaches who hired these young assistants saw potential and promise that outweighed the lack of on-field experience.
“At the receiver position, sometimes you can get a guy who’s technically sound, you can get a guy who’s schematically sound, you can get a guy who’s a great recruiter. I feel like with Garrett, he can do all three," said Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who coached McGuire at Baylor.
"So while I knew he was young, I also knew I wouldn’t be able to hire him in a couple of years if I didn’t do it now. I think the sky’s the limit for him."
The benefits of youth in coaching are obvious, and go beyond the fact that younger coaches tend to be single or newly married, with potentially fewer responsibilities and possibly more energy than an older coach with decades spent in the profession.
Younger coaches speak the same language as the players in their position rooms — they listen to the same music, have the same cultural touchstones and more. Twentysomething assistants can relate experiences that are fresh and relevant; several coaches, including DeLattiboudere and Ellington, have coached or are still coaching former teammates or players they hosted as recruits.
That’s created the possibility for some awkwardness as young assistants work to create the buffer that exists between athletes and coaches. Minnesota senior wide receiver Chris Autman-Bell and others will call DeLattiboudere by his first name, only using “coach” to be funny, DeLattiboudere said. Ellington’s former teammates call him “Coach Dan,” not by his last name.
“I went through what these guys went through as a student-athlete not too long ago,” Ellington said. “I know how they’re living outside of football. I just lived it.”
Making mark on recruiting trail
For the same reason, there’s no bigger advantage to youth than the impact these coaches can have as recruiters.
“Youth trumps all when it comes to recruiting,” DeLattiboudere said. “I can directly relate to every single guy that I’m recruiting. I still have the fresh connections, where some coaches have the experience but lose track of the alumni or the people they played with or X, Y and Z.”
But age will almost inevitably come up in conversations with recruits, their families and their coaches. Whether in living rooms or over Zoom, the question will be asked: How old are you, anyway?
“I address the elephant right away, because I embrace it.,” Kostner said. “I’m not scared of it, but I also want to show them how comfortable I am. I don’t need to give them a sales pitch. I just want to let them know, I’m 26 years old. I have a lot of learn on my journey. But here’s how I can help your son.”
The toughest challenge is getting up to speed and closing the extensive experience gap with most FBS assistants. Eleven of the 18 assistants are coaching familiar offensive or defensive systems they learned as student-athletes or during brief support positions, helping create a smooth segue into these full-time roles. However, even this group has leaned heavily on their colleagues for support during the rocky transition from player to coach.
“When I first started, man, there was so much stuff I learned football-wise, recruiting-wise, life skills,” said Ellington. “It was just crazy, the amount of information I learned that first year.”
Yet despite the need to learn on the fly, landing these full-time positions five or fewer years from graduation has placed these 18 assistants way ahead of the curve. Already embedded on the top level of college football, this group has proven that age might just be a number and taken an early first step in what are set up to be long careers in coaching.
“I want to be a head coach in the NFL,” said DeLattiboudere. “I’m just going to say it. I aspire to be like Mike Tomlin. I aspire to be like P.J. Fleck. I aspire to be like those guys. I want to change my players’ lives. It starts with a small position room and it grows into a whole defense and then it grows into an entire team.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football sees more 20-something coaches. Is this a good idea?
