With the Indianapolis Colts officially hiring Shane Steichen as their new head coach, the new leader of the franchise has begun to start to build out his staff on the offensive side of the ball.
The expectation is that Gus Bradley and Bubba Ventrone will remain with the team, but that has yet to be announced or reported.
The first coach reported to join Steichen’s staff is DeAndre Smith as the running backs coach.
Let’s take a look at four things to know about him:
1
Shane Steichen and DeAndre Smith previously worked together
It’s no secret that relationships can go a long way in getting a job within the NFL and sometimes it can take some time for it to come to fruition. Steichen and Smith worked together for one season at UNLV back in 2009. Smith was working as the running backs coach for the school and Steichen was getting his career started as a graduate assistant.
2
Smith had a great college career
With Smith being a running backs coach for most of his career, you would think he was a former running back, but that is not the case. He had a prolific career as a quarterback at Missouri State. He played in a triple-option offense and helped lead his team to a conference championship. He was a four-year starter and was named the conference’s Offensive Player of the Year as a junior and senior.
Smith was also named the conference’s Offensive Player of the Decade and was named a consensus Division I-AA All-American his senior year. As a quarterback, he threw for 4,080 yards and 18 touchdowns but did some work in the ground game with 2,276 rushing yards and 40 touchdowns.
He was also inducted into Missouri St.’s Athletics Hall of Fame and his jersey No. 1 was retired by the university.
3
Vast college coaching experience
Smith got his coaching career started in 1999 at Indiana State as their offensive coordinator and QB coach before he ended up getting his start as a running backs coach with Northern Illinois in 2001. He stuck as an RB coach as he bounced around to teams like Miami (OH), New Mexico, Illinois, Syracuse, Purdue, North Carolina, Utah State, and Texas Tech.
4
Finally broke into the NFL
Smith is relatively new to coaching at the pro level with him getting his first NFL gig just last year under Brian Daboll with the New York Giants. Under Smith, Saquon Barkley was able to put together his best season as a pro in the ground game. His 1,312 rushing yards were a career-high. He also had 10 rushing touchdowns plus 338 receiving yards. This should be promising for a bounce-back year for Jonathan Taylor following his injury-riddled 2022 season.
