At home with the Buffs
First-year defensive coordinator Eliot hopes to be done moving for a while
BOULDER» On the afternoon of his youngest daughter’s third birthday, D.J. Eliot was at work, a father of four talking to reporters Tuesday inside the Touchdown Club outside Folsom Field’s north end zone. It was the University of Colorado’s football media day, with questions aplenty for the Buffs’ first-year defensive coordinator.
The work-life balance is nothing new for Eliot. This marks his ninth coaching stop since 1999, including gigs at Tulsa, Rice and Florida State. His oldest son, Dawson, is 12 now, and when CU hired his dad away from Kentucky in January, the family trip from Lexington to Boulder was Dawson’s sixth move.
“I think the kids get accustomed to it,” Eliot said. “They learn how to adjust and make friends.”
Hopefully not again for some time. At least that was the idea when Eliot accepted the job of leading a retooled CU defense void of eight starters from a season ago. Eliot is a native Oklahoman but played linebacker at Wyoming in the late 1990s, and his wife, Miekel, grew up in Westminster.
“This is a job that my wife and I have always had our eye on,” Eliot said. “For obvious reasons, this is home. … I hope I can stay here for a long time.”
Longevity would also be well appreciated by the program. Previous defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt’s exit to Oregon in December means current redshirt seniors such as Derek McCartney will now have played for three different defensive coordinators since 2013 (Eliot, Leavitt and Kent Baer).
“It’s hard when you like someone,” McCartney said, “and it has to change.”
Eliot aims to make the transition seamless this fall. The first step that led him to CU took place in 2003, when Eliot, then defensive backs coach at Texas State, drove from San Marcos to the Dallas Cowboys’ facility to meet with then-secondary coach … Mike MacIntyre. The pair talked football for an entire afternoon in a conversation that continued over dinner.
More than a decade later, as MacIntyre began his search for Leavitt’s replacement last winter, Eliot had just completed his fourth season as defensive coordi- nator at Kentucky. His 3-4 scheme mirrored much of what made CU’s unit rank in the top 20 nationally in total defense, turnovers gained and red-zone defense a season ago. Eliot coached 11 Kentucky players to all-SEC honors during in Lexington.
“He understands our defense inside and out,” MacIntyre said. “They called it the same way at Kentucky that we call it here. There were four or five (job candidates) who knew our system that I wanted to run. (Eliot) was one that I really liked a lot.”
But it would take more than a solid game plan to earn returning CU players’ trust through the course of spring practices and fall camp. McCartney says Eliot has since struck a balance between leadership and friendship, cracking jokes and hosting team dinners while also demanding effort through each practice repetition. Now, less than two weeks out from the Rocky Mountain Showdown on Sept. 1 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High, the coaching change has inspired confidence.
“There were some really good things to come out of it,” McCartney said. “Of all the things that we learned from the last defense, learning new things with this one, we can kind of add together and really help ourselves become better players.”
Added McCartney: “(Eliot) has a great rapport with our players, I’ve noticed that. He does a great job with young people. They respond to him. They like him. He pushes them hard. He’s very, very knowledgeable in his X’s and O’s. I knew he was, but to see it firsthand, I see changes and things that we’re doing. … It’s really been good.”
Meanwhile, Eliot will do his best to balance fatherhood with football, a task made simpler by the family atmosphere instilled by MacIntyre, where it’s not unusual for coaches’ children to play near the practice fields during fall camp — Eliot’s family included.
And they don’t have plans to leave anytime soon.
“I want guys that want to be here,” MacIntyre said, “who can put their roots in and grow with it.”