Before Super Bowl-winning career, Andy Reid was once Missouri football's offensive line coach
Andy Reid has helped mold the Chiefs into a winner over his 11 seasons in Kansas City
At the time of his hiring in 2013, the franchise was languishing, having finished the previous season an NFL-worst 2-14, capping off a six-year run in which the Chiefs went a combined 29-67. An organization that hadn’t won or even appeared in a Super Bowl since the 1969 season desperately wanted to get back there, but had continually failed to do so.
That changed under Reid’s watch — and quickly. Kansas City became a consistent winner in Reid’s first five seasons, making the playoffs four times. When he made the switch from Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, a solid and respectable team became a juggernaut. Since Mahomes took over as the starter ahead the 2018 season, the Chiefs have won two Super Bowls and appeared in six AFC championships games while regularly boasting one of the NFL’s most exciting and highest-scoring offenses.
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A franchise that once seemed woefully incapable of winning the big one is on the precipice of becoming the sport’s modern-day dynasty as it heads into the 2024 Super Bowl Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers. But, decades before he worked his magic in Kansas City, Reid turned quite a few heads about 120 miles east on I-70.
For three seasons, from 1989-91, a much younger Reid served as the offensive line coach at Missouri, in what would be his final coaching stint at the college level. Though it’s one stop on a lengthy and decorated resume, it was an important step in his career that Reid looks back on fondly.
“I loved my time in Columbia," Reid said in 2020 ahead of the Super Bowl that year. "The University of Missouri, I hold close to my heart. That’s a great place. We weren’t as good as we wanted to be, but we were on the rise when I was there. ... What a great opportunity it was working for Bob Stull there and getting to know the people of Columbia. It’s a great place.”
Andy Reid Missouri coaching career
After graduating from BYU in 1981, Reid’s coaching career began as many do: working in small roles in the sport’s proverbial shadows.
He was a graduate assistant at BYU for one season before moving on to San Francisco State, where he coached the offensive line for three seasons at a program that was shuttered 10 years after Reid’s final year there. After spending the 1986 season at Northern Arizona, he was named the offensive line coach at UTEP, where his career began in earnest. The Miners improved significantly in Reid’s two seasons there, going 7-4 in 1987 (they had gone just 4-8 the previous season) and 10-3 in 1988, setting a program single-season record for wins that still stands today.
On the heels of that success, UTEP head coach Bob Stull was hired at Missouri and, notably for Reid, brought his whole staff along with him to Columbia.
Once there, Stull looked to bring an entirely new identity not just to the Tigers, but to the Big Eight Conference as a whole. Stull implemented a spread-out, passing-oriented attack that stood in stark contrast to the power-running and wishbone offenses that defined the league at the time. At least some of that work was handled by a coaching staff that featured not only Reid, but two other future NFL head coaches in Dirk Koetter and Marty Mornhinweg.
Only 30 years old at the time he was brough aboard to Missouri, Reid was quickly embraced by the players he was tasked with coaching.
“His personality was very warm,” said Andy Lock, a senior right tackle for the Tigers in Reid’s first season, in 2020. “He had kind of a fun sarcasm to him. So he kind of naturally gravitated to us pretty quick and we gained respect for him pretty quick just because he's young and we felt like he was kind of part of us when he came onboard.”
“It was almost like he was a fellow offensive lineman,” said Gene Snitsky, a former Missouri offensive lineman best known now for his professional wrestling career, in 2020. “He just fit right in with everybody and everybody fit in with him.”
In his time at Missouri, Reid was known as a tireless worker, someone who would get to the football offices before 5 a.m. and stay late. A former offensive lineman himself, Reid had insight into the position he would try to pass on to his players. At spring practices in 1990, it was noted that he kept his position group after practice had ended to get in extra conditioning work. He said that he was transparent and straightforward with his players during film review while not picking on a single player and making sure to praise them when merited.
“Every player you talk to that ever worked with him loves him because he's a great teacher, No. 1,” Stull said of Reid in 2020. “You always know he’s on your side, he's never going to demean you or anything like that. He's going to push you and you know, as long as you're learning what you're supposed to learn and busting your ass, you're going to be fine.”
Perhaps no game of Reid’s Missouri tenure was more notable than the Tigers’ 33-31 loss to Colorado in 1990 in the infamous Fifth Down Game. While Reid downplayed it in the immediate aftermath, saying he wouldn’t dwell on it for too long and that he was more focused on the Tigers’ next opponent, reminders of the game followed Reid deep into his career. Eric Bieniemy, who was one of Reid’s longtime assistants with the Chiefs before he left after the 2022 season, was a star running back on that Colorado team.
“They cheated," Reid deadpanned back in 2020 ahead of the Super Bowl. "Took them five downs to beat us, so I remind him of that often."
It was that humor and wit that endeared Reid to his players, but his knowledge and teachings were just as influential.
“He works as hard as anybody I know,” Missouri offensive tackle Russ McCullough said in 1992. “From the standpoint of an offensive lineman, he’s given me some teaching that’s a lot more than I could ever repay him for.”
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Why did Andy Reid leave Missouri?
For as much of a positive impact as Reid had on his players, Missouri struggled over Reid’s three seasons there, going 9-23-1 during that time.
After the Tigers went 3-7-1 in 1991, a new opportunity arose for Reid: In the early 1980s, while a graduate assistant at BYU, Reid first met Mike Holmgren, who had just been hired as the program’s new quarterbacks coach. From there, the two established a relationship and kept in touch.
By 1992, Holmgren had been named coach of the Green Bay Packers. As he worked to fill out his first staff, he turned to Reid with an offer to become the team’s assistant offensive line and tight ends coach.
“It’s a mixed deal because I’m leaving a great situation,” Reid said in January 1992. “[Athletic director] Dick Tamburo and Bob Stull and the people here have just been awesome. But you have an opportunity to challenge yourself at the highest level.”
For the program he left behind, his absence was notable.
“We hate to lose him, but I think it’s a good move for him,” Stull said in January 1992.
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Andy Reid coaching record
After seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Packers, Reid was named the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles after the 1998 season and has been an NFL head coach every season since.
Reid went 130-93-1 in 14 seasons with the Eagles, who he led the team to five NFC championship games and a Super Bowl appearance in 2005 before his contract was not renewed following the 2012 season. In 11 seasons with the Chiefs, he has gone 128-51, bringing his overall career record to 258-144-1.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Andy Reid and Missouri football: Chiefs' head coach was Tigers assistant
