New Mexico State University Athletics

Kevin Maurice joined head coach Doug Martin's staff as an assistant coach on April 16, 2021. Maurice, who hails from Miami, Fla., will oversee the Aggies' corps of tight ends. 

Prior to signing on at NM State, Maurice helped craft one of the most potent offenses on the FCS scene. As the running backs coach at Eastern Washington University, Maurice oversaw a talented crop of backfield rushers through his half-decade in Cheney, Wash. In the spring of 2021, the Eagles (5-1) received an at-large berth to the FCS Playoffs behind thanks to the play of Tamarick Pierce and Dennis Merritt in the backfield.

His running back corp in 2020 included second team All-Big Sky selection Antoine Custer Jr., who finished 2019 with the eighth-best rushing total in school history with 1,228 yards and scored 16 touchdowns to rank fourth. Custer ended the season ranked 15th in FCS in rushing (102.3 per game) and 11th in rushing touchdowns (16), and closed his 47-game career with 3,045 yards to rank fourth all-time at EWU and 39 touchdowns to rank second.

Custer received the bulk of the carries in 2019 because of injuries to two other backs. As a result, true freshman Silas Perreiah had 255 rushing yards and a touchdown in 10 games played.

The Eagles led FCS in total offense for the third time in school history with an average of 524.8 yards per game. Eastern was the only team in the division to rank in the top 24 in total offense, passing (317.1, fifth) and rushing (207.8, 19th), and were second in scoring (40.6). Eastern finished the 2019 season 7-5 overall and 6-2 in the Big Sky to finish with at least five league wins for the 13th-straight season.

In 2018, the Eagles finished 12-3 overall and 7-1 in the Big Sky Conference to share the league title with Weber State and UC Davis. The Eagles won their last four games of the regular season, then hosted three fellow conference champions in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs – knocking off Nicholls, UC Davis and Maine to advance to the NCAA Division I Championship Game versus North Dakota State.

The Eagles set school records in 2018 offensively for total points (647) and most games of 50 points or more (6, tied with the 2014 team), Eastern finished as the only school to rank in the top 20 in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision in total offense, rushing and passing. The Eagles averaged 528.2 yards on offense to rank third in FCS, averaging 255.9 rushing (10th), 272.3 passing (20th) and 43.1 points per game (fourth).

Led by a stable of talented running backs, Eastern had a school-record 6.62 average per rushing attempt to rank second in FCS and break the previous school record of 6.41 set in 2001. The Eagles also broke EWU records for rushing yards (3,839) and rushing touchdowns (41).

Becoming EWU's first 1,000-yard rusher since 2013, senior Sam McPherson finished with 1,510 yards on the season to rank fourth in single season school history and finish with 2,159 career yards. A second team All-Big Sky selection, he was fourth in FCS for average per carry (7.40), 20th with an average of 100.7 yards per game, 10th with 13 rushing touchdowns and third with 1,510 total rushing yards.

Besides McPherson, EWU's other four running backs averaged at least 6.4 per carry -- Custer averaged 6.4, junior Tamarick Pierce was at 7.86, junior Dennis Merritt had a 7.86 average and true freshman Isaiah Lewis finished at 7.4 during a redshirt season that saw him play in three games. The school record is 7.88 set by Taiwan Jones in 2010, with the minimum number of carries to qualify being 45 (Pierce was at 70 and Merritt was at 43).

In 2017, Eastern was eighth in FCS in passing (320.5 per game) and fifth in total offense (476.7), and was also 14th in scoring (34.5) and 11th in third down conversions (46.1 percent). Eastern’s offensive line allowed only 22 sacks in 11 games in 2017, as EWU set a school record for passing yards with 545 in a 48-41 win at Montana.
 
Custer earned second team All-Big Sky Conference honors in 2017 and received honorable mention honors on the sophomore All-America team as chosen by Hero Sports. He finished the 2017 season with 776 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns, to go along with 21 receptions for 276 yards and two more scores.
 
Maurice spent three previous seasons as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at former Big Sky Conference  North Dakota, and was victorious versus his former team on Nov. 11, 2017, when the Eagles triumphed 21-14 in his former home of Grand Forks, N.D.

His tenure with the Fighting Hawks included the 2016 season when both North Dakota and Eastern Washington shared the league title with identical 8-0 records to advance to the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs, and the Fighting Hawks featured pair of All-America running backs.
 
Maurice went against EWU just once in those three seasons he was on the staff of UND head coach Bubba Schweigert. That was a 54-3 Eagle victory in 2014 in which UND rushed for 131 yards and had only 37 passing. North Dakota was just 3-8 overall and 2-6 in the league prior to his arrival, but then went 5-7/3-5, 7-4/5-3 and 9-3/8-0 in the three years after that for a collective overall record of 21-14 and 16-8 league mark in his three seasons in Grand Forks.
 
While in Grand Forks, Maurice coached All-America running back John Santiago, who earned first team All-Big Conference honors in both 2015 and 2016, and was the league’s Freshman of the Year in 2015. Brady Oliveira earned third team All-Big Sky honors and also earned All-America accolades in 2016.
 
Santiago, who was injured part of the 2016 season, rushed for 983 yards and seven touchdowns, while Oliveira finished with 897 and 10 scores. North Dakota had a running back rush for at least 100 yards in eight of 12 games, after having a 100-yard rusher in nine of 11 games in 2015 for a total of 17 in 23 games in two seasons.
 
Santiago began fall camp in 2015 playing wide receiver, but by the end of the campaign was an All-America running back. He set UND Division I records for rushing yards (1,459) and rushing touchdowns (16), and broke a single-season program record for all-purpose yards, finishing with 2,159. He had 230 yards and three touchdowns against Montana State, and in the same game Oliveira had 167 and one score.
 
Santiago was the only running back in the FCS to rush for more than 100 yards in each of his conference games and finished fourth nationally, averaging 136.2 rushing yards per game. In fact, Santiago was one of three true freshmen running backs to each muster a 100-yard rushing game for Maurice in 2015. Oliveira and Iwarri Smith also cracked the century mark as UND’s stable of running backs finished with 2,213 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns.
 
In Maurice’s first season at UND in 2014, senior Jer Garman emerged as an honorable mention All-Big Sky selection. After losing two key contributors in the back field to season-ending injuries during the campaign, Garman took control of the ground attack in the final five games, averaging 146.0 yards per game. That stretch included a 235-yard, two-touchdown effort in the upset of No. 22 Northern Arizona and helped him notch honorable mention All-Big Sky honors.
 
Besides being the program’s recruiting coordinator, he also helped coach special teams. Among the players he coached was 2014 first team All-Big Sky punt returner Alex Tillman.
 
Maurice spent the 2012 and 2013 seasons at Purdue where he began his tenure as a graduate assistant before being named director of player personnel. In February of 2013, he was elevated to assistant recruiting coordinator at the Big Ten school for head coach Danny Hope.
 
Prior to his two years in West Lafayette, Ind., Maurice made stops at three other FBS programs, with the latest coming as an offensive graduate assistant at Nevada in 2011. He briefly served as a recruiting assistant at Miami (Fla.) before joining the Wolf Pack staff. Maurice spent the 2010 season as a recruiting assistant for head coach Butch Jones at Cincinnati.
 
Before making the move to the FBS level, Maurice spent a season as the running backs coach at Midwestern State (Texas) in 2009 and was an offensive coordinator at North Miami (Fla.) High School in 2008. The Miami native played collegiately at UTEP for two seasons in 2003 and 2004 and finished his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at St. Joseph’s (Ind.) College in 2006, then received his master’s degree in sports management from Concordia University-Chicago in 2017.

He has a 14-year-old daughter named Amira Maurice.