Gators Logo

John Donovan

John Donovan enters his third season with the Gators as the team’s Senior Offensive Analyst.

He arrived to Florida after spending the 2022 season in the same role for the Green Bay Packers. 

Donovan spent the 2020 and 2021 seasons at Washington as the Huskies’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. 

In his first season, 2020, Donovan took over an offense that returned just four starters and, with a new redshirt freshman quarterback, helped lead the Huskies to a successful season, marked by efficiency, balance and precision. Washington was third in the nation in turnover margin (with just three turnovers) and were second in the Pac-12 in third-down conversions. QB Dylan Morris won Pac-12 Freshman of the Week after two of the Huskies' four games.
 
He spent the previous four seasons (2016-19) on the Jacksonville Jaguars offensive staff, and came to Seattle with 19 years of collegiate coaching experience, including three years as offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt and two more at Penn State.
 
During his four seasons in the NFL with the Jaguars, Donovan spent two seasons (2017-18) with the quarterbacks and one each with the tight ends and running backs. In 2017, he  worked with quarterback Blake Bortles, who helped lead the Jaguars to a 10-6 record and the AFC South title. Jacksonville beat Buffalo and Pittsburgh in the playoffs to advance to the AFC Championship game.
 
Working with the running game in 2019, he helped Leonard Fournette to a career-best 1,152-yard season that also included 76 receptions.
 
In 2014, Donovan moved along to Penn State along with current head coach James Franklin, where he was named the offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, working with future NFL tight ends Jesse James and Mike Gesicki, among others.

In Donvoan’s three years at Vanderbilt, the Commodores went 24-15, easily the best three-year stretch in modern Vanderbilt football history. They went 9-4 in both 2012 and 2013, winning bowl games and finishing in the final AP top 25 each of those two years. Under Donovan's tutelege, running back Zac Stacy became the first player in Vanderbilt history with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. Stacy earned second-team All-SEC and was drafted by the Rams in 2012.

Donovan led the Vandy offense to three of the top-four total yardage marks in history, capped by a school-record 4,936 yards in 2012. That year, the Commodores averaged 30.1 points, the first team in program history to top 30 per game.

 While at Maryland, Donovan worked alongside James Franklin, who hired Donovan as his offensive coordinator and running backs coach when Franklin was named head coach at Vanderbilt prior to the 2011 season.
 
Prior to his first stop in the SEC, Donovan spent 10 years (2001-10) part of the Maryland football program in a three different roles; recruiting coordinator (2001-04), running backs coach (2005, 2008-10) and quarterbacks coach (2006-07). 

In his first season at Maryland (2001), the Terrapins won the Atlantic Coast Conference and played in the Orange Bowl. During his tenure in College Park, Donovan was a part of seven bowl teams and three seasons in which Maryland won 10 or more games – the only three such seasons in Maryland history since 1976.
 
After a brief internship with the Carolina Panthers, Donovan began his coaching career in earnest as assistant defensive backs coach at Villanova in 1997. After that, he spent the next three seasons as a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech. In his first year in Atlanta, the Yellow Jackets went 10-2 and beat Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. Tech went 8-4 and 9-3 the following two years.

A defensive back at Johns Hopkins from 1993 to 1996, he finished his college career with 12 interceptions, still tied for seventh-most in Blue Jays history. His seven picks in 1996 are one short of the school record. He earned second-team All-Centennial Conference as a junior in 1995 and made the first team as a senior.

Donovan, a native of River Edge, N.J., earned his bachelor's degree in sociology from Johns Hopkins and a master's in economics from Georgia Tech, He and his wife, Stacey, are parents of three children: son John Patrick, and daughters Cate and Shea. 

Quick Links