Carter Owen

Raiders.com is publishing a series of Q&As with members of the Silver and Black's 2025 coaching staff.

Here is the latest discussion with running backs coach Deland McCullough. McCullough spent the last three seasons at Notre Dame, where he most recently served as associate head coach/running backs coach in 2024. This is his second stint in the NFL, having previously coached running backs for the Kansas City Chiefs from 2018-20.

Read through to learn more about McCullough's incredible life story, his thoughts on joining the Raiders and his vision for how to improve the team's rushing attack.

Q: How has it been getting started with the Raiders and what have you enjoyed about the new role so far?

McCullough: It's been great. The opportunity to come back to the NFL and be with this great franchise and be with Pete Carroll and the great staff he put together; it's been really good. We're learning the offense, forming relationships with the guys and just getting ready to have a great season.

Q: You're coming off an incredible year at Notre Dame. You make it to the national championship and then two weeks later, you're announced as part of Pete Carroll's staff. How did everything play out from the end of the college season to your decision to come to Las Vegas?

McCullough: Since I left the NFL several years ago with the Kansas City Chiefs, there have always been opportunities for me to come back, a lot of opportunities actually. For me, it had to be the right opportunity under the right leadership. We had a great season this year at Notre Dame. It was a great three-year run there for the team and for me personally. My running backs were elite. When the season ended, I really wasn't looking to do anything. This opportunity came and Coach Carroll called. I still have the message on my phone. He left a message, and he said, "I heard that you're the best running backs coach in the country. I'm looking for the best running backs coach in the country." I was flattered by that and then had a great conversation with him, and it led me here.

Q: You're now working with offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, who was on the opposite sideline during your last game at Notre Dame. What has it been like working with him and what's his personality like around the building?

McCullough: A guy I worked with at USC several years ago one of the strength coaches had worked with Chip at UCLA and he spoke very highly of him. But I ended up speaking with Chip before I came and as soon as we got on the phone, I knew we'd work well together. Just the personalities, I'm like, "Yeah, we'll be good." He's an extremely smart guy, knows what he's talking about, really positions the offense for success. He's kind of got all of the answers as it relates to how to attack defenses and how to put a scheme together. I'm excited because I know we're going to run the ball. We're going to run the ball and that's right up my alley. I feel pretty confident about the things we're going to be able to get done, but we can't just run the ball, we've got put together a whole offense. So, that's what we're in the process of doing.

Q: What do you like about Chip Kelly's history with running backs and how he's used them?

McCullough: Well, I got to see it firsthand this year. You just look over the years, I mean, LeSean McCoy. I coached LeSean at Kansas City. De'Anthony Thomas, he was at Kansas City when I was there too and then I get to see the two guys that are going into the draft this year. I know between Chip and what Coach Pete Carroll wants, as far as a strong ground game that kind of sets the tone for everything we do as an offense. We're just continuing to put the pieces together.

Q: There's a lot of talk about the depth at running back in the upcoming NFL Draft and I think you have an interesting perspective, given that you've recently coached the position in college and in the NFL. What traits or characteristics in a running back have you seen translate best from college to the pro level?

McCullough: All the things still are tried and true. Guys who are mentally and physically tough, guys who can learn. But then when you start talking about the physical traits, guys who can make people miss, guys who can run with speed, run with power, catch the ball. I'm big on guys being able to protect the quarterback. So, there's a lot of things as we look at it and I'm kind of looking at it very similar to the way I recruited the past several years. If you can find one guy that can do everything, that's great. But in the age of football now, even in college football, I played five guys. Yeah, we still had our main guy, but I played a bunch of guys, and you had some guys who specialized in things. Even my time in Kansas City, I had a specific third-down back. I had a specific two-minute guy and then you had your base down people. I look at it as being something very similar here. You're going to have a bell cow guy, but you're going to have other guys who can support him in the bell cow role and help in some of the other supplementary positions as far as third down and different things like that.

Q: Raheem Mostert was added to the roster in free agency. What excites you about working with him and what does he bring to your running backs room?

McCullough: The first thing that was exciting is what he said to me. He said, "Coach, challenge me, push me." That you get a guy who's been in the league that long and still wants to be challenged. You get people like that that are like, "Hey, I got it all figured it out. Just teach me the plays and I'm good." No, he still wants to be challenged. In the conversation we had, I told him that I think there's things in his game that I know for a fact I can enhance. We got on the same page with that. His physical skill the guy can run. He's got speed. Just harnessing that and putting him in the right positions to help our team are the things that between myself and definitely Coach Kelly, we'll get figured out.

Q: The Raiders ranked 32nd in rushing last season. When you come in with a new staff, what work goes into trying to turn that around to a point where you feel good about it?

McCullough: That work is perpetual. It's not like, "Hey, you did it, now you leave." No, you always come back to the principles that set the tone for what type of offense you want to have. We're going to run the ball. Obviously, we'll do other things. We've got a great quarterback coming in. But I think it's a mindset, it's learning your learners. My background, I was a principal, I was a teacher. I feel really strongly about being able to communicate, get the most out of my guys and meet them where they are mentally, and then just create an attitude in that room. Players are a reflection of their coach. You've got to take the good and the bad that come with that and I'm ready to take on all the responsibility involved in that.

Q: I imagine you've had a chance to watch some tape from last season. What are your early impressions of the players currently in the running backs room?

McCullough: I recruited Zamir [White] when I was at USC. In the first couple days I got here, I sent him a text. He just called me right back, and he was just screaming on the phone like "Oh my goodness." I said, "You still got my number?" He said, "I still got your number." He was just laughing, because me and him had a nice connection when he was going into his senior year. But just the skill set of the guys, I'm excited to work with them. The one thing that I see - and this is the same thing when I'm recruiting guys out of high school and the same thing I'm seeing as an NFL guy - those details are really giving those guys great reads, really positioning them, giving them pertinent drill work, just fine-tuning the game for them. One thing that I've discovered in the field of coaching is how some people say, "Hey, when you get to big-time college football, you just tell the guys where to run, and they got it." Not always. "These guys in the NFL, all you need to do is tell them to run at the A- gap, and they'll figure it out. These guys are great players, they're the best that there is." Yes, sometimes, sometimes not. I think it's empowering for those guys to say, look, I've got a coach who's going come in here and tell me what I should be looking at and allow me to be able to work within a framework. Then when I can use my full instinct when I'm in the open field, I'm able to do that.

They've got their base skill set that I'm excited to work with. But more importantly, when I have those conversations with them about what they're looking at on a play, that's exciting to me because I know how I teach and I'm excited to see how these guys do.

Q: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were actually with Seattle for a brief amount of time in an internship role in 2014?

McCullough: Yeah. The story is kind of well chronicled now with my dad and everything, which I didn't know was my dad then. But in 2014, I was a running backs coach at Indiana University, and I came up to do an internship with the Seahawks. I was working with the running backs with Sherman Smith, who was my position coach and the guy who recruited me in college. There were always the jokes when I was in college. Everybody was like, "You guys look alike." We kind of just laughed about it. Then in Seattle in one of our staff meetings, Coach Carroll just kind of made a big thing. He kind of laughed and said, "Hey man, something's going on with you two guys. I was looking at you two guys, it just looked too strange, man. You guys look alike, pointing, walking around on the field alike." Me and Coach Smith laughed it off. That was in 2014.

I always knew I was adopted. Coach Smith knew I was adopted because he recruited me in college. But what he didn't know and what I didn't know was that he was my dad. Once we tracked it down, he never even knew that my mom was pregnant. It's a phenomenal story, an unbelievable story overall, and just a funny connection with Coach Carroll.

Q: You wrote a book called "Runs in the Family" that comes out June 3 and documents some of your life experiences. Why was the book something you were interested in writing?

McCullough: Been working on it for several years. Initially tried to do something with it as a movie. But then Simon & Schuster, one of the biggest publishing houses, was very excited about being involved in this project, and me and Sarah [Spain] wrote the book. I tell everybody, this is not a 350-page book about me meeting my dad. I found out he was my dad when I was 45 years old. There was a whole lot of other stuff in my life that was not roses and picket fences. The book goes through and talks about hardship, fighting through adversity. It's not a spiritual book, but it does cover the principles of grace and mercy and different things like that. I kind of reveal myself a little bit, especially for a guy like myself. I'm pretty reserved. But the people who I've talked to about the book and the couple people I've let read it, it resonates with a whole lot of people.

Read more Q&As:

Wide receivers coach Chris Beatty

Defensive backs coach Marcus Robertson