BOONE, N.C. — App State Football has hired Tyler Kelley to be the Mountaineers' running backs coach, head coach
Dowell Loggains announced Friday.
Kelley spent the 2024 and 2025 seasons as an assistant on Jon Sumrall's staff at Tulane, which went 15-2 against American Athletic Conference foes over those two years and closed a 20-7 overall run with an appearance in the College Football Playoffs on Dec. 20.
"We are excited to welcome Tyler to App State," Loggains said. "He has great experience coaching a College Football Playoff team. He brings a detailed, driven approach that will benefit our players and program as we pursue daily excellence."
During the 2025 season, with Kelley serving as the assistant running backs coach and an offensive recruiting specialist, Tulane went 11-2 with an American championship and a CFP appearance as the No. 11 seed. The Green Wave rushed for 166.3 yards per game and totaled 26 rushing touchdowns, with a quarterback and two running backs all surpassing 500 rushing yards for the season. Tulane also ranked among the national leaders in third-and-short conversions.
As a graduate assistant working with Tulane's wide receivers in 2024, the Green Wave averaged 35.1 points (16th nationally) and 405.0 yards of offense (25th nationally) during a 9-5 season that included a 7-1 mark in American play. Tulane ranked fourth nationally in third-down conversion percentage, and Kelley helped Mario Williams post more than 1,000 receiving yards.
Kelley was also a graduate assistant for wide receivers at Louisiana Tech in 2023, after being a student coach in 2020-22 and starting off as a student member of the equipment staff in 2019. He graduated from Louisiana Tech with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology.
"I'm extremely blessed and grateful for the opportunity to be at App State," Kelley said. "The standard here is to be a champion, and that's what we're going to be every day."
Kelley won a state championship as a player at Pleasant Grove High School in Texas in 2017 and was a team captain for a team that reached the state semifinals in 2018, when he was named an all-state safety.
FLORIDA HEAD COACH JON SUMRALL (FORMERLY OF TULANE) ON TYLER KELLEY:
"Tyler Kelley is a smart, hungry, detailed football coach who makes everyone around him better by how he carries himself daily."
KELLEY AT A GLANCE
Coaching Experience
2020-22: Louisiana Tech (Student assistant)
2023: Louisiana Tech (Wide receivers graduate assistant)
2024: Tulane (Wide receivers graduate assistant)
2025: Tulane (Running backs assistant/Offensive recruiting specialist)
