‘Coaching’s in his blood’
Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo was faced with a crisis in August last year. Niumatalolo had determined that assistant coach Buddy Green’s health would not permit him to coach the 2015 season, and suddenly the Midshipmen were in need of both a defensive coordinator and secondary coach.
Promoting Dale Pehrson, the longesttenured member of the staff, to defensive coordinator was an easy decision. Deciding which assistant should coach the defensive backs was a bit more difficult.
He decided on Dan O’Brien, the shortesttenured member of the staff. “I’ve been coaching long enough to know talent when I see it,” Niumatalolo said. “Coaching’s in his blood.”
O’Brien — and the secondary — lived up to Niumatalolo’s expectations. In their first season in the American Athletic Conference, the Mids were respectable with 225 passing yards per game allowed.
O’Brien’s father, Tom O’Brien, spent four decades coaching at the Division I level. He had success as head coach at Boston College and North Carolina State.
His son chose his career path while a senior at Boston College. Having spent considerable time around the program during his undergraduate days, one thing resonated with the younger O’Brien.
“I saw firsthand the impact my dad made on the lives of players he coached,” Dan said. “Talking to players and understanding the relationship they had with my dad … they would run through a wall for him.”
Tom O’Brien sat down and had a long discussion with his son about this desire to coach. The father decided Dan needed a reality check, so he called New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and set up a low-level job with the organization.
“I said to Dan, ‘Maybe you think you know what coaching is all about.’ I wanted to make sure he really understood the commitment involved,” Tom O’Brien said.
So Dan O’Brien worked as an intern for TV: Radio: Line: Scott Pioli, New England’s director of player personnel at the time.
After working for the Patriots for a while, Dan O’Brien was confident he did not want to remain in scouting, so he sought an opportunity that would eventually lead to coaching.
Via a connection from his father, O’Brien got in touch with Nick Saban at Alabama, and found himself a new position.
He spent four years in Tuscaloosa, working as an analyst under the tutelage of defensive coordinator Kirby Smart.
O’Brien came away from Alabama with an understanding of what it takes to be successful on the back end.
“Just the little things like technique, footwork, eye control. The importance of recognizing formations, receiver alignments and understanding coverages,” O’Brien said. “If you stress the fundamentals and show players how to anticipate what is going to happen out there; that’s the key.”
After spending seven years as a student coach, special intern and graduate assistant, it was time for O’Brien to take the next step. That opportunity came when Jason Swepson, who played for Tom O’Brien at Boston College, then spent 14 years as his assistant, was hired as head coach at Elon. He turned to Dan O’Brien.
After spending three years at Elon, O’Brien learned another basic tenet of college football coaching: If your boss gets ousted, you are suddenly out of a job. Swepson was fired by the Football Championship Subdivision school after posting a 10-24 record. But O’Brien landed on his feet, thanks in large part to the connections he’d developed in the college coaching fraternity.
Navy fullbacks coach Mike Judge was an intern with the Patriots at the same time as O’Brien, and the two remained friends. O’Brien ran into Judge at the American Football Coaches Association convention during the offseason and learned there was an opening in Annapolis.
O’Brien met with Navy defensive coordinator Buddy Green. A few days later, Niumatalolo offered the 31-year-old the opening created when Tony Grantham left for Louisville.