Dominique Davenport - Football Coach

Dominique Davenport

Title:
Special Teams Analyst

Dominique Davenport was promoted to Running Backs Coach at TU in January 2026.
He spent the 2025 season at TU as the Special Teams Analyst.
He helped oversee the special teams at TU, where Seth Morgan was named Special Teams Player of the Week following his performance at Oklahoma State.
Morgan finished the year with 17 field goals, the seventh most made in a single season at Tulsa.
He also helped guide Angus Davies to the longest punt in the nation during the 2025 season and onto the Ray Guy Award Watch List.
At ETSU, Davenport was the Running Backs Coach and Co-Special Teams Coordinator.
ETSU rushed for 194.2 yards per game, the most in the Southern Conference and the 19th most in the FCS, and they averaged 4.7 yards per carry.
Davenport coached Bryson Irby to Second Team All-SoCon honors. Irby was ETSU's leading rusher that season, totaling 763 yards on 145 carries (5.3 avg.) and six touchdowns. Irby's rushing total ranked fourth among SoCon running backs. Irby's top game of the season came against No. 2 North Dakota State, where he rushed for 147 yards and three touchdowns on 15 attempts. Irby also topped the century mark rushing in a win at The Citadel in late September (126 yards).
Besides Irby, Devontae Houston rushed for 648 yards, the seventh most in the SoCon.
During the 2023 season at Gardner-Webb, Davenport continued to develop Narii Gaither and the rest of the Runnin' Bulldogs backfield. The team rushed for 154.5 yards per game, the 48th-best mark in the FCS. Building on this momentum, Gardner-Webb advanced to the FCS Playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Gaither, once again, received Second-Team All-Conference honors. Partnering with Jayden Brown, both backs surpassed 650 rushing yards—Gaither led with 701 yards while Brown tallied 666 and a team-high five touchdowns.
In the regular season finale, Gardner-Webb rushed for a season-high 308 yards, including three rushing touchdowns.
Davenport coached Gaither to an All-Big South campaign in which he rushed for 1,019 yards and scored seven touchdowns in 2022. In the season opener against Limestone, Davenport's squad produced 412 rushing yards—marking the second-highest single-game total in program history.
When the team competed in the first round of the FCS Playoffs at Eastern Kentucky, Gaither ran for 245 yards, the most in Gardner-Webb's Division-I era and the second-most by any player in program history.
Overall, the group amassed 2,323 rushing yards for the season, leading the Big South Conference.
On Special Teams, GWU successfully converted 53 extra points and one two-point conversion attempted.
Davenport spent the 2018 and 2019 seasons coaching running backs at Tennessee Tech. He helped the Golden Eagles to one of the biggest turnarounds nationally in the FCS in 2019 and one of the top offensive seasons in program history.
Davenport helped oversee a rushing attack that accounted for 1,700 yards and 17 touchdowns in his second season at Tech, with three different ball carriers eclipsing the 400-yard mark.
Prior to joining the offensive staff in Cookeville, Tenn., Davenport worked as cornerbacks coach in the Southern Conference with the Mercer Bears from 2012-2017. The Bears, under head coach Bobby Lamb, posted a 10-2 record in 2013 – the program’s first season in the modern era. That marked an NCAA record for wins in an inaugural season.
During his time in Macon, Ga., Davenport helped develop standouts Eric Jackson (2016 SoCon All-Freshman Team), Stephen Houzah (2015 SoCon All-Freshman Team) and Alex Avant (2014 second-team All-SoCon).
Davenport spent one season coaching in the high school ranks, getting his start at First Coast (Fla.) High in Jacksonville as an assistant coach. He helped the squad to a Florida Class 7A runner up finish, a 13-1 record and coached defensive backs that wound up at Florida State, Rutgers, South Florida, UCF and Elon.
Davenport played collegiately at Coastal Carolina. During his time as a student-athlete with the Chanticleers from 2006-2010, Davenport started at safety for three seasons and was a first-team All-Big South choice in his final season.
Davenport was a member of two Big South Conference championship teams (2006, 2010) and helped the Chanticleers to their first two FCS playoff appearances in those seasons under head coach David Bennett.
He set the Chants’ single-game tackles mark with 20 hits vs. Colgate in 2008 and wrapped up his career ranked third on the program’s all-time tackles list and fifth in career interceptions.
A highlight came in his final season against Gardner-Webb, when he picked off a pass early in the fourth quarter in Spangler Stadium and returned it 28 yards to tie a close game at 17-17. Coastal Carolina went on to win that game, 30-27, in overtime to secure the Big South’s first automatic bid to the FCS playoffs.
Davenport is married to his wife Rachel Ann and they have four children, Jude, Slade, Boone and Rowe.