Dawgs By Nature
The Cleveland Browns are knee deep in attempting to find their next head coach. Their list of potential candidates is fairly long. John Harbaugh is the only name that has been scratched off so far. There are other guys currently on playoff teams who will eventually be interviewed when the NFL rules allow. Once teams lose in the playoffs, schedules for interviews free up.
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That happened this past weekend. The Jacksonville Jaguars lost to the Buffalo Bills in a wild game, 27-24. That freed up any assistant coaches who had interview requests.
Like the Browns’ request to get a meeting with Jacksonville OC Grant Udinski, a young coach who has many bringing back up the story of 30-year-old Sean McVay’s hiring from years ago.
Out of all the names on Cleveland’s interview list, why Udinski? And why hasn’t anyone talked about him until now? Who is he?
Udinski grew up in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He attended Central Bucks West High School, where he played tight end in football but was a standout in lacrosse. As a junior and senior, he was voted All-Conference in lacrosse.
At the time, lacrosse teams in college were mostly at larger ACC and Big 10 schools. Udinski decided to stick to football and played backup tight end for one year at Davidson College, located in North Carolina. After one season, he then became a walk-on at Towson in the Coastal Athletic Association.
At Towson, they switched Udinski to defense, where he excelled at defensive end. In his final two seasons, he ended up with a scholarship. He excelled in the classroom, earning CoSIDA Academic First-Team All-American honors at Towson in 1998 for his 3.94 undergraduate GPA and 4.0 GPA at the master’s level.
He went undrafted in the 2019 NFL draft and decided that he would prefer to go into coaching instead. Udinski traveled to the January 2019 American Football Coaches Association convention in San Antonio. Udinski sat in the host hotel and introduced himself and talked to as many coaches as he could recognize, many of whom he had emailed about the possibility of coaching there.
One of those coaches was Jeff Nixon, who was the co-offensive coordinator/running backs coach at Baylor University. Nixon was one of the coaches Udinski had emailed much earlier. Matt Rhule was the head coach. Nixon instructed Udinski that at Baylor, there wasn’t a graduate assistant position available; however, he did invite him to watch practices and sit in on meetings during spring practice.
Rhule then instructed Udinski to apply to grad school. Less than a month later, Baylor had a GA spot open up, and Udinski grabbed it. His job duties included breaking down film, creating reports, and working with quarterbacks. After another grad student left, he switched over to the defense to assist DC Phil Snow. Udinski put in long hours and was in the right place at the right time.
Udinski wasn’t from Waco, Texas, nor did he have any...
