Report: Notre Dame to hire Indiana’s Deland McCullough as running backs coach
Notre Dame has found the newest leader of its corps of running backs, per Bruce Feldman of The Athletic. Indiana running backs coach Deland McCullough will come to South Bend in the same capacity. He had been in his current role in Bloomington for just a year and also held the title of associate head coach.
This past year was McCullough’s second stint at Indiana; he was also the running backs coach for the Hoosiers from 2011-16. In between the two coaching jobs at Indiana, McCullough was the running backs coach at USC and for the Kansas City Chiefs. He won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs for the 2019 season.
In both 2018 and 2020, McCullough helped oversee a Chiefs’ offense that led the NFL in total yardage. While at USC in 2017, he coached running back Ronald Jones II to a rushing performance of 1,550 yards, which was second in the Pac-12 and eighth nationally.
McCullough, 49, is originally from Pittsburgh and played college football at Miami University. The former running back totaled 4,854 yards and 37 touchdowns from scrimmage over his four-year collegiate career and was the 1992 MAC Freshman of the Year. He ran for a total of 4,368 yards, which was a school record at the time. He began his career at the college coaching level as an intern for the RedHawks.
The new position coach will replace Lance Taylor, who left Notre Dame for the offensive coordinator job at Louisville.
The McCullough family is well-known around college football
McCullough has four sons, Deland Jr., Dasan, Daeh and Diem. The oldest three boys play football. Diem was born in 2016.
Deland Jr. is a rising senior defensive back at Indiana. He transferred to the Hoosier program this year after two years at his father’s alma mater, and he appeared in 10 games in 2021, primarily on special teams. He went to high school in Kansas, and he was the No. 13 prospect from the state in the 2019 class according to On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.
Dasan, the middle son, enrolled at Indiana on Jan. 10. He is a 6-foot-5, 228-pound EDGE rusher who was the No. 2 prospect from the state of Indiana, No. 9 EDGE and No. 89 player nationally in the class of 2022. He had an offer from Notre Dame and was originally committed to Ohio State.
The third McCullough brother is a four-star cornerback in the 2023 class and the No. 3 prospect out of the state of Indiana per On3 Consensus. He committed to Indiana on April 13 and held several other Power Five offers from across the country including Michigan, Penn State, Florida and Utah.
Additionally, McCullough has one of the most extraordinary adoption stories you will ever find.
