Notre Dame Hiring Deland McCullough As Running Backs Coach

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will hire Deland McCullough as its running backs coach, replacing Lance Taylor in the position for 2022.

The 49-year-old Pittsburgh native has spent the last 11 years as a running backs coach:

• He’s been the Indiana associate head coach and running backs coach for the past year, his second stint in Bloomington. The Hoosiers rushed for 1,370 yards last year, led by Stephen Carr’s 600 yards. The team scored 13 touchdowns on the ground last year.
• McCullough spent three seasons (2018-2020) with the Kansas City Chiefs — during which time he helped coached a Super Bowl-winning squad. Under his tutelage, fullback Anthony Sherman earned a Pro Bowl nod in 2018 and Clyde Edwards-Helaire had 1,100 yards from scrimmage during his 2020 rookie campaign.
• During his single season in Los Angeles (2017), the USC Trojans rushed for 2,591 yards and 29 touchdowns amid an 11-3 season. Ronald Jones II, now of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, rushed for 1,550 yards and 15 scores, while Carr — in his first stint with McCullough — rushed for 363 yards.
• Prior to joining the Pac-12, McCullough had a six-year stint with Indiana. During that time, Tevin Coleman became the school’s fifth leading rusher of all time with 3,219 yards (7.1 yards per carry). Stephen Houston rushed for 2,304 yards (good for 11th all-time) and Devine Redding added 2,252 yards (12th on the Hoosiers’ list). Coleman, Houston and Redding combined for 70 touchdowns in their Indiana careers. In 2014, BTN.com named McCullough its running backs coach of the year.

McCullough is a 1996 graduate of Miami-Ohio, where he rushed for 4,368 yards in four seasons. He returned to the RedHawks in 2010 as an offensive and special teams intern.

The former running back had brief NFL stops with the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles, and played two years for the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and one year with the Arena League’s Chicago Enforcers (2001).

McCullough’s oldest son, Deland II, is a 6-foot-1 safety who is a junior-to-be at Indiana. Dasan is a 6-foot-5 safety who held a Notre Dame offer, but enrolled early at Indiana last month. Daeh, the third oldest, is a 6-foot-2 safety in the Class of 2023 who has not, as yet, garnered the Irish’s interest.

Taylor was hired Jan. 16 as the offensive coordinator of the Louisville Cardinals, after three seasons in South Bend.

Read Sarah Spain’s 2018 ESPN piece on McClelland’s search for his biological parents.