Donovan, who spent the last four seasons on the Jacksonville Jaguars offensive staff, comes to Seattle with 19 years of collegiate coaching experience, including three years as offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt and two more at Penn State.
“Coach Donovan has a great deal of experience at both the college and NFL levels, learning from a lot of great offensive minds about coaching the kind of aggressive, pro-style offense we want to play here at Washington,” Lake said. “From my own experience, I know how much a coach can learn and grow by spending significant time in the NFL. I’m excited for him to get to Seattle and get started.”
“I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of such a great university, with unbelievable football tradition, like the University of Washington,” Donovan said. “Thanks to Coach Lake and everyone involved for this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to getting started. Go Dawgs!”
During his four seasons in the NFL with the Jaguars, Donovan spent two seasons (2017-18) with the quarterbacks and one each with the tight ends and running backs. In 2017, he worked with quarterback Blake Bortles, who helped lead the Jaguars to a 10-6 record and the AFC South title. Jacksonville beat Buffalo and Pittsburgh in the playoffs to advance to the AFC Championship game.
Working with the running game in 2019, he helped Leonard Fournette to a career-best 1,152-yard season that also included 76 receptions.
A defensive back at Johns Hopkins from 1993 to 1996, he finished his college career with 12 interceptions, still tied for seventh-most in Blue Jays history. His seven picks in 1996 are one short of the school record. He earned second-team All-Centennial Conference as a junior in 1995 and made the first team as a senior.
After a brief internship with the Carolina Panthers, Donovan began his coaching career in earnest as assistant defensive backs coach at Villanova in 1997. After that, he spent the next three seasons at a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech. In his first year in Atlanta, the Yellowjackets went 10-2 and beat Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. Tech went 8-4 and 9-3 the following two years.
Following the 2000 season, Donovan was hired to be a member of Ralph Friedgen’s first staff at Maryland, working as recruiting coordinator for the Terrapins for four seasons before taking over as running backs coach in 2005. He spent 2006 and 2007 as quarterbacks coach and then went back to work with the running backs for the 2008 through 2010 seasons.
In his first season at Maryland (2001), the Terrapins won the Atlantic Coast Conference and played in the Orange Bowl. During his tenure in College Park, Donovan was a part of seven bowl teams and three seasons in which Maryland won 10 or more games – the only three such seasons in Maryland history since 1976.
While at Maryland, Donovan worked alongside James Franklin, who hired Donovan as his offensive coordinator and running backs coach when Franklin was named head coach at Vanderbilt prior to the 2011 season.
In three years at Vandy, the Commodores went 24-15, easily the best three-year stretch in modern Vanderbilt football history. They went 9-4 in both 2012 and 2013, winning bowl games and finishing in the final AP top 25 each of those two years. Under Donovan’s tutelege, running back Zac Stacy became the first player in Vanderbilt history with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. Stacy earned second-team All-SEC and was drafted by the Rams in 2012.
In three years in Nashville, Donovan led the Vandy offense to three of the top-four total yardage marks in history, capped by a school-record 4,936 yards in 2012. That year, the Commodores averaged 30.1 points, the first team in program history to top 30 per game.
In 2014, Donovan moved along to Penn State along with Franklin, where he was named the offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, working with future NFL tight ends Jesse James and Mike Gesicki, among others.
Donovan, a native of River Edge, N.J., earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Johns Hopkins and a master’s in economics from Georgia Tech, He and his wife, Stacey, are parents of three children: son John Patrick, and daughters Cate and Shea.
(Article provided from the University of Washington)
