Former CSU captain named head coach at Colorado Mesa University

DENVER — Miles Kochevar has been named the head coach at Colorado Mesa University.

A three-year letterwinner with the Green & Gold, Kochevar was a team captain for the Rams as a senior in 2005 and led the team in tackles that season with 91. It was an up and down campaign for CSU as a whole, but Kochevar played some of his best football in the biggest games of the season. In the opener against Colorado he recorded seven total tackles, a pair of pass deflections, a sack and an interception. And in the bowl game versus Navy, Kochevar had 16 total tackles (11 solo). 

The former Colorado State defensive back began coaching at CMU back in 2007 and worked with the Mavericks initially through 2011. After being hired as a defensive backs coach, Kochevar was ultimately promoted to the team’s pass defense coordinator and special teams coach from 2009-2011. 

Kochevar then returned to his alma mater in 2012, where he was a graduate assistant on Jim McElwain’s staff through 2014. During his time in Fort Collins, Kochevar worked with the safeties and helped develop both Trent Matthews and Kevin Pierre-Louis in the process. 

After McElwain moved onto Florida, Kochevar spent time at Humboldt State, Northern Colorado and West Texas A&M from 2015 to 2019. He became the defensive coordinator at all of those schools, except for UNC, though he did lead defensive strategy for the Bears in 2019. 

In 2020 he was hired to be the defensive coordinator for CSU-Pueblo and held that position for the last two seasons. Now, though, he has officially gone full circle and will return to his hometown to be the head coach of the CMU Mavericks. 

“I am honored and deeply humbled to be the head football coach at Colorado Mesa University and am eager to get to work,” said Kochevar via press release. “I want to thank President John Marshall, Athletic Director Bryan Rooks, the search committee and committee chair Robin Brown for trusting me to advance the program and to further unite the Grand Junction community with our players, coaches and staff.”

CMU’s director of athletics Ryan Brooks had the following to say on the hiring of Kochevar in the same release: “Community and recruiting were two of the main focuses we had during this search. Bringing in Miles hits both of the points pretty hard. Miles has the respect of the community and the high school coaches throughout the state of Colorado to continue the success of the program.”

Kochevar was a great Ram and got to play for one of the greatest coaches to ever step foot on a football field in Sonny Lubick. He also was an assistant coach during the most successful stint for CSU Football in the last decade under McElwain. Hopefully he’ll find the same type of success as the coaches that he was around in Fort Collins. But it’s a really cool story regardless.