University of Connecticut Athletics
Football
- Title:
- Assistant Defensive Backs
- Email:
- football@uconn.edu
Kendrick Shaver joins the UConn football coaching staff in 2025 and will serve and an assistant coach working with the defensive back. Shaver brings over 20 years of coaching experience including 12 years coaching and recruiting at the FBS level to the UConn staff.
Shaver's last stop was working with UConn defensive coordinator Matt Brock at Mississippi State during the 2023 season. He served as a defensive analyst focused on the defensive backs position. He worked primarily with the team's safeties and on special teams while also assisting in the evaluation process of recruiting the transfer portal.
Prior to his stint at MSU, he spent two seasons on the staff at Tulsa where he was the team's safeties coach. He spent the fall of 2020 working in The Spring League as a secondary coach after spending the 2018 and 2019 seasons as the safeties and nickleback coach at Washington State University.
Shaver spent seven seasons working on the defensive coaching staff at Utah State, the last two in 2016 and 2017 as the team's co-defensive coordinator. During his tenure he coached the cornerbacks and safeties as well as the outside linebackers. He helped lead a program that played in a school-record five-straight bowl games, to go along with a 2012 Western Athletic Conference championship.
Prior to joining Utah State’s staff, Shaver spent four years (2007-10) as the secondary coach at Northern Colorado. Shaver was also the secondary coach and recruiting coordinator at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M (2006), and defensive and special teams graduate assistant at Eastern Kentucky (2004-05). He began his coaching career at Hillcrest (Mo.) High School, where he coached defensive backs and wide receivers in 2002.
A native of Eufaula, Okla., Shaver played two seasons (1998-99) at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M Junior College before transferring to Missouri State, where he was a free safety and cornerback in 2000 and 2001. Shaver spent the 2003 season playing for the Sioux Falls Storm of the NIFL before coaching full-time.
He graduated from Missouri State with a bachelor’s degree in business in 2002 and went on to earn his master’s degree in physical education in 2005 from Eastern Kentucky. He served an NFL Minority Coaching Fellowship with the Oakland Raiders in 2014.
