Oklahoma State football fills assistant coaching vacancies with familiar names
Scott WrightThe Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Another former Cowboy is coming back to Oklahoma State.
Vance Vice, who was teammates with new OSU offensive coordinator Doug Meacham in the 1980s, is expected to be the Cowboys’ new offensive line coach, according to a report from PokesReport.com.
Additionally, the report listed three new defensive additions that appear to fill out the primary positions on defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s staff. The site later reported that D.J. Tialavea had been hired to coach tight ends.
The final three hirings include the promotion of veteran coach Greg Brown from analyst to safeties coach, plus two outside additions.
Brown, who will enter his 45th year in coaching next season, will coach safeties, according to the report. He has been a coordinator at multiple Power 4 programs and has several years of NFL experience. He coached the secondary at Louisville in 2014-15, where he worked under Grantham.
He joins previously hired Jules Montinar, who came in from East Carolina and will coach cornerbacks.
The secondary group is joined by Kevie Thompson, who will coach nickelbacks, coming to OSU after three seasons as the defensive coordinator at East Mississippi Community College.
Ryan McNamara is also set to join the Cowboy staff, coming from Central Michigan. He will assist linebackers coach Kap Dede, who was hired earlier this week.
In addition to Saturday’s news of Kevin Johns being named the Cowboys’ quarterbacks coach, Tialavea was added from Utah State to oversee tight ends. Tialavea played at Utah State and has coached there since 2020, playing four years in the NFL between those stints.
Vice will fill a key role in rebuilding the Cowboy offensive line.
Though this will be Vice’s first job coaching in the state of Oklahoma, he has a wide variety of ties beyond his playing days.
Most recently, he was the offensive line coach at UNLV under Barry Odom, who grew up in Maysville. Before that, Vice was the offensive line coach under Tulsa native Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech for seven seasons.
From 2005-08, Vice worked under former Cowboy linebackers coach Brent Guy at Utah State, and in the early 2000s, Vice was at Illinois State with Denver Johnson, who has coached at all three of Oklahoma’s Division I programs.
The OSU offensive staff still has at least three more spots to fill, though with the NCAA’s removal of on-field coaching limitations, the staff could grow larger.
