As a Cleveland native, Kansas passing game coordinator Jim Zebrowski has stuck with the Browns through thick and thin.
That included the 2015 season in which John DeFilippo — by that point a veteran NFL quarterbacks coach whom Zebrowski had met through a mutual friend — served as their offensive coordinator.
That year, like most this century, did not end particularly well for the Browns, and DeFilippo was in Philadelphia the following season. But he soon won a Super Bowl with the Eagles as their quarterbacks coach, helping oversee Nick Foles’ improbable run to glory.
After stints with three more NFL teams and head coaching jobs in the USFL and UFL, DeFilippo found his way back to the college ranks for the first time since he was at San Jose State in 2011 — and now he’s helping Zebrowski out with KU’s quarterbacks.
“All the experience that he has and the years he has under his belt, the NFL experience and stuff like that, it’s been great,” Chase Jenkins said. “I’m always picking Coach Flip’s brain. He always has great things to say.”
KU’s former analyst who used to help Zebrowski with the quarterbacks, Eric Terrazas, left for UCF in the offseason. DeFilippo came aboard not long afterward.
DeFilippo got his start as an intern for the Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts while he was playing as a college quarterback for James Madison. His first coaching gig out of school came as the quarterbacks coach for Fordham, and after stints at two more colleges he quickly made the leap to the pros — where he remained for two decades, outside of that two-year tenure at San Jose State.
In the meantime, he served in a variety of roles, most often focused on the quarterbacks, and served three times as an offensive coordinator in Cleveland in 2015, Minnesota in 2018 and Jacksonville in 2019.
“It’s been great,” Zebrowski said of adding DeFilippo. “What’s great about him is the NFL is so situationally dominant. You know what I mean? Like all those games come down to two-minute and four-minute situations. So he’s been a real help in those, talking to those guys about what he went through, what guys he’s coached went through.”
He’s also provided valuable insights on the sort of personalities that make for successful NFL quarterbacks. For example, in the context of Isaiah Marshall’s quieter leadership style as opposed to Cole Ballard, Zebrowski said that DeFilippo has pointed out that not every NFL quarterback is a “yeller.”
“He’s been a real help in talking to those guys about what he went through, what guys he’s coached went through, the guys who made it, and the guys who didn’t make it,” Zebrowski said. “Those characteristics, those traits, those qualities — what differentiated Carson Wentz from somebody else? And all those different things. Leadership skills, how different guys lead in different ways. So it’s been terrific. He’s a great guy. It’s been a blast.”
Zebrowski has developed sufficient trust in DeFilippo for them to split up the quarterbacks during practices, allowing each coach to take on a different group, which in turn means Zebrowski can spend more time mentoring quarterbacks like true freshman Jaylen Mason. (He’s already getting more time to focus on his position group this season to begin with, given that Andy Kotelnicki has stepped in as the offensive play caller.)
As for the more experienced Jayhawks, Marshall said of DeFilippo, “Every day, I learn something new with Coach Flip.”
DeFilippo joins the fold as one of a variety of new analysts on this year’s KU staff, headlined by the well-respected defensive backs coach Duane Akina, formerly of Arizona and Texas, who is the senior analyst on the opposite side of the ball.
