The UNC football program announced Monday morning that it has agreed to hire Jovan Dewitt as its new special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach, replacing Scott Boone who was fired last week.

Dewitt arrives in Chapel Hill after spending the last two seasons in the same roles under head coach Scott Frost at Nebraska after previously serving as the associate head coach under Frost at UCF. He has nine years of experience as a defensive coordinator and seven years under his belt coaching special teams in his career.

“Jovan brings a wealth of experience in special teams and is known as one of the best special teams coaches in the nation,” UNC head coach Mack Brown said. “He also has a long history coaching linebackers, and because he spent time working with Coach [Jay] Bateman at Army, he’s familiar with what we’re trying to do on defense, which should really help us. For those reasons, we felt like he would be an excellent addition to our staff.”

While at Florida Atlantic in 2013, Dewitt coordinated a defense which ranked 11th in the nation. He has also coached an All-Conference linebacker in three of his last four years on the sidelines.

In regards to special teams, Dewitt’s units have seven combined punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns in the past four seasons and his punt return team has blocked four punts over the last two years.  He has also coached a pair of All-Conference selections at punter.

A graduate of Northern Michigan University in 1999 with a degree in physics and mathematics, Dewitt turned down a job opportunity at NASA in order to begin his football coaching career.

Last season, the 43-year-old missed most of Nebraska’s spring practice while battling throat cancer–an illness which caused him to lose over 100 pounds while going through 38 rounds of radiation and three rounds of chemotherapy according to an article published last August by the Denver Post.

A CAT scan last summer then revealed Dewitt to be cancer-free once again, allowing him to return to his coaching duties.

“I want to first off thank Coach Brown and the Carolina administration for presenting me and my family with this opportunity,” Dewitt said, in a statement released by UNC. “I’ve long admired Coach Brown and what he stands for, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to work with him and the rest of the staff at UNC. It’s clear this is a program on the rise and I’m looking forward to doing my part to continue the positive momentum created last season. We can’t wait to get to Chapel Hill, meet all of the people and players, and get to work.”

 

 

Photo via Associated Press

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