Legendary Oklahoma State Football Assistant Joe DeForest Retires

STILLWATER – Technically, Joe DeForest was retained by Mike Gundy when he got the head coaching job. Gundy had been the offensive coordinator for the departed Les Miles, that left for LSU, and DeForest was coaching on defense and was the special teams coordinator. He would also become Gundy’s recruiting ace and he helped Gundy immensely out of the gate. Gundy retained DeForest at the same time he hired Rob Glass away from Florida as his strength and conditioning coach. Gundy and DeForest agreed that Gundy needed to hire the rest of the staff. While he did that over the next 17 days, DeForest hit everyone of the 18 commitments that Oklahoma State had at the time. Thje Cowboys would sign 17-of-those-18 prospects DeForest visited to keep them committed. It was one of the greatest single person recruiting efforts that I had ever seen. 

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DeForest at Oklahoma State.

That strong recruiter, very imaginary special teams coordinator, and loyal coach is now retired. 

“Wanted you to know I hung up my whistle last week,” DeForest messaged me this weekend. “Officially retired!! 🙏”

“Joe was a very gifted football coach with tremendous people skills, a rare coach that can handle his position and also coach all four special teams at a very high-level. He was a major part of our success here at Oklahoma State while he was here.”

DeForest was at Oklahoma State a total of 11-years and seven of those were with Mike Gundy as head coach. He was hired away from Duke by Les Miles to maily coach all the special teams. He had made quite a reputation for himself at Duke. Prior to that the former standout football and baseball athlete at Louisiana-Lafayette had coached at his high school Titusville (Fla.) and four four-years at Rice. 

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DeForest at West Virginia was a defensive coordinator.

After his 11-years in Stillwater, DeForest went with Dana Holgerson to West Virginia at the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for WVU. DeForest later had his duties changed as he went back to coordinating special teams instead of defense. He was at West Virginia for four seasons, Kansas for two, Southern California for two, and he finished his career coaching safeties for North Carolina State and head coach Dave Doeren for the past five seasons.

That all adds up to a 37-year career in football coaching, with 36-of-th-37 in Division I college football.   

“Congratulations to Joe Deforest on his retirement,” NC State head coach Dave Doeren said. “I want thank him for his contributions to our program and wish him and his family the best.”

North Carolina State Athletics

DeForest finished his coaching career at NC State.

“I want to thank Coach Doeren for allowing me to finish my career at NC State, which was my plan when I came here,” said DeForest. “I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family and watching Wolfpack football do great things.”  

He has recruited and coached so many outstanding athletes including punter Matt Fodge, corner Ricky Price, safety Andre Sexton, and long snapper Zach Allen all from that first Gundy recruiting class. He also recruited the likes of quarterback Bobby Reid, offensive tackle Russell Okung, cornerback Perrish Cox, cornerback Vernon Grant, running back Keith Toston, linebacker Shaun Lewis, and cornerback Terrance Anderson. He also coached kicker Dan Bailey and kicker/punter Quinn Sharp.