The Journey of Texas State Head Coach G.J. Kinne

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Coach Gary Joe Kinne, or G.J. Kinne, is an ex-NFL quarterback who was signed out of The University of Tulsa as an undrafted free agent to the New York Jets in 2012.

Playing Career

G.J. Kinne was the starting quarterback for three seasons at Tulsa. During his college career, he threw for 9,472 yards, 81 touchdowns, and 32 interceptions. Kinne managed to maintain a 61.3 completion percentage as a Golden Hurricane while also achieving a quarterback rating of 144.8.

Unfortunately, Kinne had trouble sticking with any one team once he got to the NFL. In four short years G.J Kinne was in the league, he was on three different NFL teams: The New York Jets, The New York Giants, and The Philadelphia Eagles. Regardless of signing with multiple teams, Kinne spent most of his NFL career on practice squads.

In 2015, Kinne had one last-ditch effort to stay in the league by attempting to change positions from quarterback to wide receiver. However, that was still not enough for him to make the final roster.

The Early Coaching Years

Kinne spent the first three years after the NFL as a graduate assistant at SMU (2017), an offensive analyst for Arkansas (2018), and the Offensive special projects director at the Philadelphia Eagles (2019).

He got his first full-time coaching job as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Hawaii in 2020.

Coach Kinne spent only one season at Hawaii before accepting the same position at UCF to work under his old college coach Gus Malzhan. He took on the role of the Co-Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach for the Golden Knights.

Coach Kinne As Head Coach

In 2021, Coach Kinne was offered and accepted his first head coaching opportunity. He was named the Head Coach of The University of Incarnate Word.

In 2022, he led the Cardinals to a 12-2 record with a heartbreaking loss to North Dakota State (35-32) in the FCS semifinals game. During this season, Kinne’s team had the highest scoring offense in the entire FCS at 51.5 points per game. His offense was led by superstar quarterback Lindsey Scott Jr., who ranked 2nd in FCS passing yards in 2022 at 4,686 yards. Incarnate Word’s leading Wide Receiver, Darion Chafin, also ranked 2nd in FCS for receiving yards at 1,244 yards.

Coach Kinne spent just one season at the FCS level before Texas

State came calling. This made the Bobcats the first FBS school to have

G.J. Kinne in the role of Head Coach.

Transforming The Bobcats (So Far)

With Kinne jumping to the FBS, twelve former FCS players made the big jump with him, nine of which followed him directly from Incarnate Word. 25 additional players would transfer to Texas State from within the FBS level.

In hopes of having an immediate impact, Coach Kinne quickly got to work in the transfer portal. This decision has led the Bobcats to the second-ranked transfer portal class in the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) along with the 69th-ranked transfer class nationally.

This is coming off a 2022 recruiting season where ex-Bobcats Head Coach Jake Spatival had the Bobcats ranked third in the SBC, and 74th nationally, with only 17 commits.

Trust The Process

So far, Head Coach G.J. Kinne has proved a phenomenal hire that can truly work as long as the Texas State fans and community …… Trust The Process