Norm Chow was driving his car down in Redondo Beach on a Friday afternoon five years ago when his phone rang. It was a young coach calling to give him the news that he was getting his first NFL position coach job. The young coach just wanted to say thanks — again — to the long-time former offensive coordinator for helping jump-start his coaching career a decade earlier. Chow, never one to gush, beamed with pride as he listened to his old protégé.
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Jake Peetz, the guy on the other end of that phone call, had just been promoted to Raiders quarterback coach. Fast forward five years from that day, and the 37-year-old Peetz’s career has just taken another big step forward with him getting hired as LSU’s new offensive coordinator. From working three jobs at a community college to training NBA players to seven NFL and college roles in nine years, Peetz’s path has taken a bunch of fascinating twists and turns that started even before Chow changed the trajectory of his coaching career.
Peetz, a Nebraska native, played for the Cornhuskers as a walk-on long snapper. After the conclusion of spring football near the end of Peetz’s junior year, he, like the rest of his teammates, had an exit meeting with head coach Bill Callahan. “What are your aspirations after you graduate?” Callahan asked Peetz, who at the time was thinking of going to law school, like his parents did, or perhaps medical school.
Callahan broached the idea of Peetz considering a coaching career. Peetz had never thought of that, but he was intrigued. The Huskers’ coach told Peetz that if he really wanted to try it, he should go work a summer camp for a college and get a taste of coaching. Callahan provided Peetz with a list of colleges where he thought Peetz could help him work their camps. UCLA, where Callahan’s son Brian played, sounded like a good option. Then-Bruins coach Karl Dorrell signed off on it and they did a coaching swap where UCLA had a graduate assistant come out to Lincoln to work one of their camps.
Peetz was hooked on coaching after his time at UCLA. After he finished up his playing career in 2005, he drove from the Alamo Bowl to Arizona where he spent five months interning at Athletes Performance where he helped train pro athletes. He then came out to Southern California train athletes and later talked his way into an assistant job at Santa Barbara City College.
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And by “talked his way into,” Peetz means that literally. Peetz walked onto the field during a Santa Barbara practice and introduced himself to head coach Reggie Bolton, who did not know who he was.
“He just kind of walked up, he was energetic and he was fired up, and I was like, ‘Let’s go,” Bolton said. “He was looking for like a GA deal, and I was looking for coaches. I was looking for young coaches, and he was knowledgeable so I said, ‘Let’s go.’”
At Santa Barbara, Peetz coached safeties, special teams and ran the strength and conditioning program at age 23.
Then, one of the athletes Peetz trained from his days at Athletes Performance, Al Harrington, helped him land a job as the assistant strength coach of the Indiana Pacers. The job meant Peetz could continue his coaching career but also be closer to his family in the midwest as his brother Jesse battled a serious illness. Coaching with the Pacers that season gave Peetz a unique perspective since he was connecting with so many people who had grown up differently than he had.
Peetz spent a season with the Pacers but wanted to get back to football and was able to get on at UCLA after linking up with then-Bruins assistant Clark Lea, who he met through Callahan. Lea told Peetz they needed some help but wasn’t sure if they’d be able to pay him. Peetz jumped at the chance. He helped as a defensive staffer for the 2007 season as an intern, but after Dorrell was fired and a new staff came in, a different opportunity emerged.
Chow was hired by new Bruins head coach Rick Neuheisel as offensive coordinator in 2008.
“I had just got let go by the Titans and I drove over to UCLA after I got hired to go into the office,” Chow told The Athletic. “Jake was the first one I met there.”
Chow asked Peetz to show him around the UCLA campus, so he and Peetz went on a three-hour walk around Westwood. “He begged me to move him over to offense,” said Chow. The next day Chow told Neuheisel that he needed a guy to help him coach quarterbacks. “I want Jake.” Neuheisel agreed to make him an offensive analyst.
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“He wanted to be a coach so bad,” Chow said. “He was such a sponge. He wanted to learn and he’s as bright as can be.”
Peetz then got hired before the 2008 NFL season by the Jaguars as a scout. Three years later, he worked his way up to assistant QB coach, a route from scout to coaching that Jaguars offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said he’d never seen in his four decades in coaching.
The receivers coach that year in Jacksonville was Jerry Sullivan, the longtime NFL receiving guru who also went on to be LSU’s passing game coordinator in 2018. He’s tracked Peetz’s run from the young pup to an SEC coordinator for a coach and program he knows well.
“He’s a hands-on guy, and he’s got an edge to him,” Sullivan told The Athletic. “He’ll coach them hard.”
Peetz’s responsibilities that year were primarily doing computer work and developing playbooks, something Bratkowski recalls him excelling at. That year, the Jaguar staff went to his wedding as he married his wife, Maggie, the sister of George Helow, who played under Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss and now coaches at Maryland.
Eight years later, Peetz and Maggie have six kids.
Greg Olson, the Jaguars quarterback coach, then recommended Peetz to a buddy of his – then-Alabama offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier. Olson praised the former Cornhusker for being so detailed and thorough and that he was a real go-getter. Peetz spent one season with the Tide as an analyst helping work with the quarterbacks. From Tuscaloosa, Peetz went back to the NFL and Washington as an offensive quality control coach for one season before getting hired by the Raiders in 2015, where he eventually was promoted to quarterbacks coach in 2017.
Nate Tice, who now co-hosts The Athletic Football Show on Mondays, overlapped with Peetz on the Raiders staff those three seasons and points out Peetz’s background as a defensive back who also coached defense at multiple stops.
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“I think that really helps him put offenses together because he knows how to attack their weaknesses,” Tice said. “He was the lead third-down game plan guy when he was with us (in Oakland) and his insight would really help versus specific coverages.”
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr had a Pro Bowl season but head coach Jack Del Rio was fired after going 6-10. Peetz ended up taking an analyst job back on Nick Saban’s staff the next year in 2018, where he became co-offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’ right-hand man working on third-down packages.
“We became really close,” Gattis told The Athletic. “Jake’s just a football junkie. He was constantly drawing up plays.”
After the Tide lost the national championship game to Clemson, Peetz was hired by the Panthers as their running backs coach where he worked with Christian McCaffrey, who made his first Pro Bowl and finished third in the NFL’s offensive player of the year voting.
Jake Peetz (left) with Christian McCaffrey in 2019. (Bob Donnan / USA Today)“He’s such a detailed guy,” said Norv Turner, who was the Panthers’ offensive coordinator in 2019. Turner said Carolina general manager Marty Hurney and many of the team’s scouts who’d spent time with Peetz really pushed for him to get on their staff.
“Jake does a great job during the week putting together film for these guys and having them really prepared for what they’re gonna see on Sunday. He’s really comprehensive.”
Carolina cleaned house after the season, though, firing head coach Ron Rivera and bringing in Matt Rhule. Peetz was retained and elevated to quarterbacks coach, where he got to work under new OC Joe Brady, the man who most LSU football fans hope Peetz can have a similar impact to in Baton Rouge.
With Ed Orgeron re-booting his staff after a dismal 2020, he targeted Peetz as his top offensive coordinator candidate. The LSU head coach had reached out to Brady for recommendations and Peetz was high on his list. When Orgeron and Peetz met all afternoon Tuesday, along with former LSU staffer DJ Mangas, who also is coming from Carolina as the Tigers’ passing game coordinator, they talked about the vision for the Tigers’ offense.
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One of the things that resonated with Orgeron was seeing how organized Peetz was and there was a strong sense of his leadership skills that came through with his presence. Yes, he would be a first-time play-caller, but Peetz pointed out that he had assisted four other first-time play-callers in his NFL career — Sean McVay, Todd Downing, Scott Turner and Brady — and learned from those experiences and their processes. Still, this is going to be the unknown for Peetz and LSU.
Gattis has learned how challenging that transition can be. You can be as ready as possible and have learned from brilliant minds, but until you’re actually doing it, it’s still a learning process. “The biggest adjustment is managing your own staff as well as your players beyond the X’s and O’s, and getting a grasp of what you guys can — and can’t — do,” Gattis said. “What you’ve really gotta do is develop the quarterback position. That’s where you win or lose games. You can’t do without the triggerman.”
Gattis expects Peetz to do well and thinks he’s walking into a good situation.
“The thing I think that will benefit Jake is, with Orgeron — how can I put this — the safety’s off the gun,” he said. “Meaning you can call the game as open as possible. He’s not looking for a ball-control offense and someone to just manage the game. He’s looking for someone to light up (the scoreboard). Throw it 50 times, so you have no hesitation in how you can call it. You can just let the players make plays.”
For all the relevant questions about whether or not Peetz can call plays, those who have seen his rise point out one aspect that can go underappreciated: His journey.
“He’s had good exposure to different situations, which helps you grow in this business,” Sullivan said. “He’s been a quality control guy. He’s been an assistant helping with the offense. He’s been in scouting. All those different situations you get into, different organizations, different people you’re around, they all leave a little bit with you and help you grow as a coach.”
He learned he might like the way one team does something and doesn’t quite agree with how another team does it. He’s been at enough stops to put together his collage of a personal philosophy.
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And Orgeron will be the man for which he experiments with that philosophy as LSU hopes to rediscover the magic of hiring Brady two years ago. Bratkowski worked with Orgeron for three years at Miami and knows Peetz, too. He sees the duo being a fun pairing.
“I think Jake will enjoy working with him,” he said. “He’s a fiery, exciting guy. I think it will be a very good time for Jake — as long as they do well.”
(Top photo: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)
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