photo by: AP Photo/LM Otero

Kansas linebacker Joe Dineen Jr. smiles during the Big 12 NCAA college football media day in Frisco, Texas, Monday, July 17, 2017.

Lawrence native and former All-American linebacker Joe Dineen Jr. is headed back to Kansas to serve as a defensive analyst for the KU football program, the Journal-World has confirmed.

Dineen spent the past two years as the outside linebackers coach at Purdue, where he worked under a fellow former Jayhawk linebacker in Kevin Kane. He had come with Kane from Illinois and previously SMU.

On the field, Dineen starred at KU from 2014 to 2018, playing a variety of positions as a true freshman before settling into the linebacker spot at which he became a fixture for several seasons, serving for three years as a team captain.

His 45.5 tackles for loss are a KU record. During the 2018 season, he recorded 147 tackles, narrowly exceeding his mark from the prior campaign; his career mark of 386 is tied for fourth in program history with Kenny Logan Jr.

At the conclusion of his redshirt senior season, he earned second-team All-American honors and then spent brief stints in the NFL as an undrafted player with the Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars before turning to coaching.

The addition of Dineen is an apparent response to the offseason departure of senior analyst Mike Dawson, a former New York Giants outside linebackers coach who helped tutor KU’s front seven during the 2024 season. Dawson stayed in the Big 12 but left the Jayhawks, joining Scott Frost’s new coaching staff at UCF as defensive run game coordinator and edge coach.

Analysts have taken on a greater role in college football over the course of the last year now that they are actually able to coach players during practices and games as a result of a recent rule change, allowing players at schools like KU to get instruction from a wider variety of sources than just the 11 so-called “countable coaches.”

Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports and 247Sports, who reported the addition of Dineen on Tuesday morning, also wrote that KU is hiring Matt Birkett as another analyst alongside Dineen.

Birkett was a defensive analyst at Tulsa in 2024 and previously coached cornerbacks at South Florida and James Madison in recent years. The longest stint of his coaching career was seven seasons serving in a variety of capacities at Maine.

In working with KU’s defensive backs as an analyst, Birkett will replace Brandon Shelby, who was promoted to defensive backs coach after D.K. McDonald assumed the role of defensive coordinator in December.