The 2024 Minnesota Gophers football season has long since concluded. Draft-eligible players from last year are preparing for the NFL Draft, while those who have exhausted their eligibility are transitioning to life beyond football.
Meanwhile, the team’s underclassmen are already gearing up for the next season, and head coach PJ Fleck, along with his staff, is busy recruiting both high school prospects and transfer portal targets across the country.
Minnesota’s coaching staff has undergone significant changes this offseason, even more so than the roster. The Gophers lost another defensive coordinator, as Corey Hetherman was hired by Miami and replaced with defensive backs coach Danny Collins.
Additionally, running backs coach Nic McKissic-Luke departed to take the same role with the New York Jets, following the earlier loss of top young assistant Winston DeLattiboudere, who coached the defensive line and served as assistant head coach before joining the Arizona Cardinals.
Minnesota Hires C.J. Robbins as Rush Ends Coach
To help fill the void left by DeLattiboudere, PJ Fleck hired Central Michigan defensive line coach C.J. Robbins as the Gophers’ new Rush Ends coach. Robbins is no stranger to the program, having previously been on Minnesota’s staff in 2020 and 2021.
According to sources, Robbins, a Northwestern graduate, has also coached at Kent State and South Dakota. Originally from Peru, Illinois, he was a three-year starter for Northwestern from 2014 to 2016, serving as a team captain in his senior year and earning Academic All-Big Ten honors twice.
After his playing career ended, Robbins began coaching at Miami (Ohio) in 2019 as an assistant defensive line coach before joining the Gophers in 2020. He later worked with outside linebackers at South Dakota and spent two seasons at Kent State coaching Rush Ends under former Minnesota assistant Kenni Burns.
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