DJ Bland, who served as the defensive backs coach at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology last fall, is beginning his fourth season on the Missouri S&T coaching staff as an assistant coach.
Bland will coach the defensive backs at Missouri S&T and in his first season in the role, helped coach a unit that has ranked at the top of the Great Lakes Valley Conference as it allowed just 290.8 yards per game and forced 25 turnovers in 12 games. Opposing quarterbacks completed just 52.8 percent of their passes against a group that included Roderick Chapman, an all-region selection who ranked among the NCAA Division II leaders in passes defended.
Two seasons ago, the Miners allowed just 17 touchdown passes in 11 games and recorded 15 interceptions -- three of which were returned for touchdowns.
During the 2017 season at Rose-Hulman, Bland was in charge of the team’s secondary and also worked with the special teams, particularly with the kickoff return team that averaged nearly 22 yards per return. Rose-Hulman’s defense held opposing teams to a completion percentage of under 50 percent on the season and recorded 10 interceptions while ranking second in the nation in quarterback sacks per game.
The Fightin’ Engineers had one all-region player last season in cornerback Alec Thompson and two additional players that were all-conference selections in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference.
Bland also served as the defensive coordinator for Rose-Hulman’s junior varsity team during the 2017 campaign.
In 2016, Bland served as the defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. In that season, St. Norbert’s defense finished fifth in turnover margin and 11
th in pass interceptions in NCAA Division III.  While at St. Norbert, he was also the lead coach for the kickoff return team and worked in all phases of the special teams.
In that season, he coached Ryan Grandlic, who earned
D3Football.com All-America honors and a first-team all-conference selection along with teammate Tyler Jensen.
Bland began his coaching career at the high school level at Palm Harbor High School in Florida, where he served as the defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach during the 2015 season.
Bland, who is from Chicago, Ill., played collegiately at Eastern Illinois University, where he was a four-year letterwinner as a defensive back and played on two Ohio Valley Conference championship teams that also took part in the NCAA Division I Football Championships Series playoffs. The Panthers’ 2013 squad, which included current San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and was ranked as high as fourth nationally, advanced to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA playoffs. Bland graduated from Eastern Illinois in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies.
