Bob Sanders, a former NFL defensive coordinator who won a national title as a defensive assistant before leaving the college ranks, joined the App State Football staff as the Mountaineers' senior defensive assistant before the 2025 season.
 
Sanders has nearly 50 years of coaching experience, including 18 in the NFL. The native of Jacksonville, N.C., attended college in his home state (at Davidson) and began his coaching career as a high school assistant in North Carolina at Southwest Onslow in 1976.
 
He worked in defensive roles at Georgia Tech, East Carolina, Richmond and Duke before following Steve Spurrier to Florida, where he worked from 1990-2000 and was the assistant defensive coordinator for a national championship team during the 1996 season.
 
Starting in 2001 and concluding with his 2022 role as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ outside linebackers coach, Sanders coached for nearly two decades in pro football.
 
Sanders served as the Miami Dolphins’ linebackers coach from 2001-04 and became the Green Bay Packers’ defensive ends coach in 2005 before working as the Packers’ defensive coordinator from 2006-08. He coached with the Buffalo Bills from 2009-2012 before serving as the Oakland Raiders’ linebackers coach from 2013-14 and the Arizona Cardinals’ linebackers coach from 2015-17.
 
Sanders worked in the Alliance of American Football in 2019, coordinating the defense for the Orlando Apollos, before reuniting with Bruce Arians in Tampa Bay during the 2022 season.

A defensive player at Davidson from 1972-75, Sanders earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the school in 1976. He and his wife, Kathie, have three children: Lindsay, Sarah and Rob.