Nick Sirianni is a 39-year-old former NCAA Division 3 wide receiver who once played in an indoor football league, got his first NFL coaching job at 28, has been with Frank Reich with two different teams and is now the fourth member of his family to become a head coach.
Sirianni is set to become the Eagles’ new head coach. Here are five things to know about him:
A COLLEGE STUD: Sirianni was a wide receiver at NCAA Division 3 powerhouse Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. Mount Union won seven NCAA Division 3 titles between 1993 and 2002, and Sirianni was on three of those teams. His senior year he caught 52 passes for 998 yards and 13 touchdowns, finishing just two yards of 1,000 for the season. His biggest game was a 4-for-164 performance in a 55-7 win over Ohio Northern, including a 73-yard touchdown catch from Zac Bruney. His 19.6 career average ranks 5th in school history. He spent one year playing for the Canton Legends of the Atlantic Indoor Football League before starting his coaching career back at Mount Union in the fall of 2006.
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A FAMILY OF COACHES: Sirianni comes from a family of his coaches. His dad, Fran Sirianni, coached high school football in upstate New York for 45 years and was inducted into the Clarion (Pa.) Sports Hall of Fame in 2018. Nick played for his dad at Southwestern Central High in West Ellicot, N.Y. Older brother Mike coaches at Washington & Jefferson in Washington, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, where he’s the winningest coach in school history and has a career record of .812. Another older brother, Jay, no longer coaches but won a state Class C championships while coaching at Southwestern Central.
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THE JUMP TO THE NFL: After starting his coaching career modestly at Mount Union from 2004 through 2005 and Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2006 through 2008, Sirianni got an interview through a friend with then-Chiefs head coach Todd Haley in 2009 and got hired for a low-level offensive quality control position. The first offensive coordinator he worked under was Bill Muir, who had been Rich Kotite’s offensive line coach with the Eagles. He worked his way up to WRs coach with the Chiefs in 2012 (after Romeo Crennel had replaced Haley), when he worked under offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
WORKING WITH FRANK REICH: Sirianni spent five years with the Chargers as both a WRs and QBs coach under Mike McCoy and Anthony Lynn. He first worked with Frank Reich in San Diego with Reich in 2013, when Sirianni was a quality control coach and Reich coached wide receivers. When Reich was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2014, Sirianni became his quarterbacks coach, working with Philip Rivers. And when Reich got the Colts’ head coaching job after the Eagles won the Super Bowl three years ago this week, he hired Sirianni as his offensive coordinator.
NFL
A BIG PROMOTION: During his three years as offensive coordinator, the Colts ranked 8th in the NFL in scoring (25.9 points per game) and went 28-20, reaching the playoffs twice, despite having three different starting quarterbacks. They ranked 5th in points and 7th in yards in 2018 under Andrew Luck and 9th in points and 10th in yards this past year with Philip Rivers at QB. They were 16th and 25th in 2019 with Jacoby Brissett starting.
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