By Ernie Gonzalez (@superego1012):
A little over a month after the departure of former offensive coordinator Andrew Sowder, San Jose State announced Friday it has found his replacement. His name is Kevin McGiven.
The married 40-year-old father of three spent the last three seasons inside the same cave as much of the current SJSU coaching staff, Oregon State, where he overlapped with current Spartan head coach Brent Brennan during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
Defensive coordinator Derrick Odum, defensive line coach Joe Seumalo, Linebackers coach Bojay Filimoeatu, wideouts coach Kevin Cummings and QB coach Ryan Gunderson all have ties to Corvallis, Oregon.
McGiven began his coaching career in 1998 as a student assistant with Louisiana Tech.He then coached high-school football in Utah before landing his first graduate assistant position in BYU in 2002.
He bounced around the Beehive state, spending time in Southern Utah, Weber State and Utah State between 2005-2009 where he was an offensive coordinator, assistant head coach quarterbacks coach and wide receivers coach during that span.
He took his talents out-of-state from 2010-2012, joining the University of Memphis, then Montana State, where he led the explosive offense of the No. 20 Bobcats to their third consecutive Big-Sky championship.
in 2013, he returned to Utah State and continued his mentoring success as an OC.
The Aggies had four offensive players earn a number of different all-conference honors in 2013, according to Utah State Athletics. That same season, USU’s offense set four school-records (offensive plays, completions, first downs and touchdown passes).
The last three seasons have been some to forget for McGiven, as him and the Beavers have posted a 7-29 record.
As for how it went down, it was pretty much set-in-stone the Beavers were going to sweep away its coaching staff after being one of only five programs in the nation not to win two games this past season.
It’s safe to believe Brennan had McGiven in the back of his mind the entire month of December, especially since the Beavers went 1-11 and ended their season bullied 69-10 against their in-state rival Oregon Ducks.
The Beaver offense struggled mightily in 2017, putting up just 20.7 points per game and had only 4,005 yards of total offense all season.
Meanwhile the Spartans also had their share of issues in 2017, finished just one-win better than the Beavers at 2-11 and averaged almost five points less per game (15.8).
If McGiven can come in and establish himself as a mentor to the young Spartans and teach them the inner value of success, the job will be fulfilled way before the start of the 2018 season.