73 Days Coach Kyle DeVan
Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 5:49 am
Coach DeVan is the new offensive line coach. He played at Oregon State, 2004-2007, starting 38 games and was a 3-time All-Academic honoree, twice All-PAC-10 honorable mention, and All-PAC-10 second team in 2006. DeVan played 5 years in the NFL for the Redskins, Jets, Colts (where he won a Super Bowl), Eagles, and Titans.
He started coaching as a grad assistant for Oregon St and USC before moving on to the NFL where he was an assistant O-line coach for the Saints. Since 2016 DeVan has been the O-line coach for Ball State and was also the assistant head coach last year.
Dennis Polian, assistant AD for football, was key to connecting DeVan with Arizona with both working together in Indianapolis. DeVan is young, energetic, with both NFL and PAC-12 experience and looks like he should be a good fit both on the field and out recruiting. Here are some key quotes from Brian Pedersen's AZ Desert Swarm article on DeVan's hiring:
“I like to show things,” DeVan said. “Until my body breaks down and I’m over the hill, I want to be out there demonstrating. I’m intense. I’m yelling and screaming but I’m also pumping these guys up. I don’t want to just be a yeller, but I also don’t want to just be a positive person all the time. O-linemen can take the hard coaching.
“Everything I do is just to make sure I grab their attention,” he said. “When a running back breaks big runs, I love celebrating, I’m going to sprint up and down the sideline. If these guys aren’t celebrating and sprinting then we’ve got a problem.”
“He’s all about energy,” Donovan Laie said. “I’m excited to come to practice. Him teaching us all the ways that he’s learned, I feel like it’s helping us to develop into a better player.”
DeVan said his experience with zone rushing from the NFL—“I wasn’t running the power schemes in the NFL, I was too small”—should mesh well with Mazzone’s system. He said he will make suggestions on how to maximize the run game’s potential without trying to change the offense.
“I’m not here to change the way we run the ball, I’m here to add to it,” DeVan said. “I’m here to make our offense better. When you’re the No. 1 rushing offense in the league the last (three) years, I don’t want to mess that up.”