One of Deion Sanders’ top assistant coaches has left Colorado to take an assistant coaching job with the Denver Broncos. Robert Livingston, who left on the eve of Sanders’ fourth spring football season at Colorado, will be replaced by former Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Chris Marve.
USA Today reported that Marve was already part of the team as its new linebackers coach. As Marve gets promoted to Livingston’s position, Colorado will now have a Black head coach (Sanders), Black defensive coordinator (Marve) and Black offensive coordinator (Brennan Marion).
This is rare, considering the sport only started having Black head coaches in major college football in 1979, 110 years after it all began.
Currently, there are 13 Black head coaches in major college football; however, there are no offensive and defensive coordinators who are also Black, according to USA Today. In 2012, however, Stanford also had a Black head coach (David Shaw) with an offensive coordinator (Pep Hamilton) and a defensive coordinator (Derek Mason) who are Black, USA Today Sports found. Syracuse had two Black coordinators in 2024 under head coach Fran Brown, who is Black.
Colorado is the only major college school to have brought in at least four non-interim Black head coaches, but never had Black offensive and defensive coordinators working at the same time until now.
Livingston is the latest top coach to leave Colorado under Sanders. Sanders has had three offensive coordinators and now three defensive coordinators since his hiring in December 2022.
