Derek Kief joins the Arkansas Staff as a Senior Quality Control for the offense after spending the 2022 season on the field coaching at Towson.
At Towson, Kief coached the Tigers’ wide receivers.
Prior to Towson, Kief was a graduate assistant coach at the University of Maryland, working with the wide receivers and special teams unit. In 2021, he helped the Maryland wide receivers break the program’s single season passing record with 3,960 yards as well as total offensive yards in a season with 5,740. He served in several roles, including working with recruiting on and off-campus, leading position meetings, putting together practice schedules, breaking down film and helping with scouting reports.
Kief played 51 games at Alabama from 2014-18 as a wide receiver and on special teams. He was part of two national championship and four Southeastern Conference teams, earning a spot on the 2019 National Football Foundation Hampshire Honor Society. As well as playing, Kief was a coach for the Nick Saban Football Camp and was a recruitment team assistant. He earned an invite to the Buffalo Bills rookie mini-camp in 2019.
Before Alabama, he was the No. 26 nationally ranked wide receiver and four-star prospect by ESPN as a wide receiver from La Salle High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, finishing with 155 career receptions, 2,105 receiving yards and 23 receiving touchdowns. He earned 2012 and 2013 Associated Press All-Ohio Division II Football Team and All-District distinction.
Kief earned his undergraduate degree from Alabama in 2017 in exercise science and his Master’s Degree in Kinesiology in 2018.