Kansas hires former Akron interim head coach Oscar Rodriguez Jr. as analyst | Boyer on the Beat – KUsports

Kansas coach Lance Leipold reacts during the first half of the team's NCAA college football game against TCU on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU won 31-28. (AP Photo/Ron Jenkins)

The Kansas football team has hired Oscar Rodriguez Jr., a Kansas native who finished last season as Akron's interim head coach, as a defensive analyst.

Rodriguez will work with the defensive backs, though as an analyst, he is not allowed to coach players on the field. Jordan Peterson has been the Jayhawks' defensive backs coach the last two seasons.

His roots in Kansas are deep. Born and raised in Liberal, Rodriguez played safety at Emporia State in 2001, transferred to Coffeyville Community College in 2002 and then played two seasons at Fort Hays State. He then began coaching, first at a high school in Texas, and earned a master's in educational administration in 2008 from Washburn, where he was the defensive backs coach. He then coached at Baker, Hutchinson Community College, Emporia State and Garden City Community College and served as the defensive coordinator at each school.

Rodriguez then left Kansas before the 2015 season and spent three seasons at La Verne, a Division III university in California, where in 2017 he was named the Division III National Assistant Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches' Association. He then became the assistant head coach and inside linebackers coach at Chattanooga in 2018 and moved to Akron the following season, when he was the safeties coach before coaching the inside linebackers beginning in 2020.

Akron coach Tom Arth was fired in November after nine games and Rodriguez was named the interim coach for the final three. The Zips lost all three, and new coach Joe Moorhead did not retain Rodriguez after he was hired on Dec. 4.

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Kansas hires former Akron interim head coach Oscar Rodriguez Jr. as analyst | Boyer on the Beat - KUsports