So, the other day, the name Jay Norvell popped up, and I got curious. You know how it is, you hear a name, especially in football coaching circles, and you start wondering, “Where all has this guy actually been?” I didn’t have a clue off the top of my head, just knew his current spot, maybe one other. I figured, let me just look this up quick.
I went ahead and did a basic search, just punched his name and “coaching history” into the search bar. Right away, his current job came up, obviously. But I wanted the whole picture, the journey, you know? Where did he start? What were the stepping stones? It wasn’t just a single page listing everything neatly, not at first anyway.
It took a bit more digging. I had to piece things together from different places. You see bits here, mentions there. Sometimes it’s just a line in an old article, sometimes it’s buried in a team’s historical staff list. It felt like putting together a puzzle, honestly. I wasn’t looking for super deep stats or anything, just the names of the teams he’d been with.
My Tracking Process
Okay, so here’s kinda how I went about tracking down the different places he’s coached. It involved hopping between different sports info spots online, the kind that track coaches and stats. I started making a list as I found confirmed places he’d worked. Had to make sure I wasn’t just grabbing rumors.
Here’s the list I put together from my digging:
- Iowa (Started out here as a graduate assistant, way back)
- Northern Iowa
- Wisconsin
- Iowa State
- Indianapolis Colts (Yeah, an NFL stop)
- Oakland Raiders (Another NFL gig)
- Nebraska
- Oklahoma
- UCLA
- Texas
- Arizona State
- Nevada (His first head coaching job at the college level, I think)
- Colorado State (Which is his current spot)
I decided listing them chronologically, more or less, made the most sense. It gives you a better feel for the path he took, moving from place to place, different roles – some assistant gigs, coordinators, then finally the head coach positions. Seeing it laid out like that, you get a sense of the journey through college football and even the pros.
It wasn’t rocket science, but it took a little time, clicking around, confirming stuff. You go down these little rabbit holes sometimes just trying to answer a simple question. Anyway, that’s the list I came up with based on what I could find. Quite a few stops along the way.
