With eight years as a college head coach, seven more as a defensive coordinator and two seasons in the National Football League, second-year Northwestern State associate head coach and defensive coordinator Daryl Daye provides accomplishment and experience to the Demons’ football program.
Daye, head coach at Division II Missouri Southern from 2012-14, went with his heart and came home to Louisiana in spring 2015 to join his close friend and longtime coaching ally Jay Thomas.
He is beginning his second season coordinating the Purple Swarm defense and coaching linebackers with a high degree of enthusiasm. As the Demons won four of their last six games last fall, Daye’s young defense showed continuous improvement, capped by an impressive finale when NSU held the explosive Stephen F. Austin attack to 298 yards and intercepted three passes while allowing only 9 of 27 accuracy in a 33-17 triumph to reclaim sports’ largest trophy, Chief Caddo.
Daye and Thomas met while working at LSU as graduate assistants in 1987-88, and coached together at Nicholls from 1999-2003 when Daye was head coach and Thomas was the defensive coordinator.
“He’s a tremendous asset for this program and to this community, and he’s a good person, a great coach and a good friend,” said Thomas. “The loyalty will always be there … we have that brotherly deal together, so it has been a lot of fun. He brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. We share the same concepts, the same approach.
“He’s a guy players love playing for. He sees it from their perspective. He keeps it fun and he has a positive coaching style,” said Thomas.
Daye, who has more than 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, said leaving a head coaching position was not a simple decision to make, but the chance to be close to his roots and work with Thomas in a rising Louisiana program was ideal.
“Jay is a great head coach who I’ve known and considered as good a friend as I could hope to have for many years. He was with us up in Joplin (at Missouri Southern) for my first season as head coach before he got the Northwestern job, and we had a blast and got a lot done. To be able to come home and coach with him, at a great university on the upswing, with the kind of tradition and potential that is in the Demon football program, it’s a true blessing.”
Daye rebuilt the Missouri Southern program, posting a 17-15 record in three years, including the school’s best season (7-4) in 20 years in 2013 ending with a road win at Division II power, ninth-ranked Pittsburg State. He had two winning seasons, beginning with a 6-5 mark in 2012 with Thomas and Demons’ defensive line coach Jake Landoll on board as the Lions posted their first winning mark since 2007 and only the third mark over .500 in 20 years.
As head coach at Nicholls, Daye was named the 2002 Southland Conference Coach of the Year after a 7-4 record and had the Colonels in championship contention through the final week of the 2003 season, when Nicholls broke 32 offensive school records. Players he and his staff recruited formed the foundation for Thomas’ 2005 Southland championship team that reached the FCS playoffs.
He’s coached under four NFL head coaches: Chan Gailey, Dave Wannstedt, Sam Rutigliano and Bill Ansparger, who was one of the NFL’s top defensive coordinators and LSU’s head coach when Daye came on staff with the Tigers after playing from 1982-85. As assistant to the head coach on Gailey’s Buffalo Bills staff in 2010-11, he helped coordinate operations while assisting Wannstedt with the linebackers and on special teams. Daye coached for Rutigliano for eight seasons at Liberty.
He was part of the coaching staff for the 2011 Senior Bowl in Mobile.
Daye has also worked under head coaches Mike Archer at LSU, Curley Hallman at Southern Mississippi and Pete Richardson at Southern.
As a player and young coach at LSU, Daye was part of teams that played in the 1983 Orange Bowl, 198 Sugar Bowl, 1985 Liberty Bowl, 1986 Sugar Bowl, 1988 Gator Bowl, 1989 Hall of Fame Bowl and the 1990 All-American Bowl. LSU won the Southeastern Conference championship twice, in 1986 and 1988, while Daye was at his alma mater. He played for coach Bill Arnsparger at LSU.
He also helped Southern win the 2005 Bayou Classic over Grambling in one of the biggest games each year at the Division I FCS level.
Along with his passion for football, Daye is very musically-oriented. He has written six songs that have been picked up by CMA artists, including three that have been recorded.
His late father, Donnie, played on LSU’s 1958 national championship team as a fullback and linebacker. His mother was a majorette at LSU.
Daye’s wife, the former Kathy Polko, was a four-year letterwinner on the LSU gymnastics team.
