Western Carolina University

Joe Speed joined the Western Carolina football coaching staff in February 2021 ahead of the spring Southern Conference football season. Speed came to Cullowhee after spending the two previous years as both an offensive (2019) and defensive (2020)  analyst at UCLA under Chip Kelly and a combined 13 seasons on staff with WCU graduate Paul Johnson at both Georgia Tech (2010-19) and Navy (2002, 2006-07).
 
Speed will serve as a co-defensive coordinator and coach the outside linebackers – or the rush and spur linebackers – under first-year defensive coordinator Andy McCollum, whom Speed worked alongside while at Georgia Tech.
 
A 1996 graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Speed began his coaching career as an executive administrator and military liaison at Navy in 2000 after a successful military tour with the United States Marines. In that position, he also served to recruit future Marine Officers while also handling many administrative, logistical, and professional matters pertaining to the football team and the Naval Academy Athletic Association.
 
During his combined eight years (2000-03, 2006-09) at his alma mater, Speed spent two years as the Director of Athletics at the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I., which included a season as head football coach before returning to Annapolis and the gridiron full-time in 2006 as the defensive backs coach and the head coach of the JV team. During his time on staff in Annapolis, Navy posted a 61-29 record including a 10-4 overall mark in 2009, the Academy’s first 10-win season in 104 years that was capped by a win over Missouri in the Texas Bowl.
 
At Navy, Speed mentored under both Johnson, where he helped the Mids claim the Commander-in-Chief Trophy five-consecutive seasons beginning in 2003 ending a 21-year drought, and Ken Niumatalolo (2008-09) who won the trophy two additional seasons to represent seven-straight sweeps by Navy reeled off from 2003-09 – the longest consecutive win streak since the trophy’s creation in 1972.
 
In 2010, Speed made the move to Atlanta to follow Johnson to Georgia Tech to coach the inside linebackers. He would also coach the defensive backs (2013-15) and corner backs (2016-2018). While at Tech, Speed saw three of his players earn All-ACC honors and five former student-athletes go on to play in the NFL. He coached a pair of all-conference selections in 2014 including Jamal Golden and D.J. White, as well as Georgia Tech’s all-time leading tackler in the secondary, Isaiah Johnson, who amassed 283 career stops.
 
Under his tutelage, Yellow Jackets’ linebacker Julian Burnett emerged as one of the top defenders in Georgia Tech’s recent history, leading the team in tackles in both 2010 (89) and 2011 (120). In fact, in 2010, Speed’s top two linebackers – Burnett and Brad Jefferson – ranked one-two on the squad with a combined 173 tackles.
 
Originally from Baltimore, Md., Speed was a four-year starter on defense at safety for the Navy Midshipmen, finishing his career with 260 tackles and five interceptions. Following his graduation, Speed was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corp and reported to Quantico, Va., where he trained and took the Infantry Officers Course. He was eventually promoted to captain.
 
In September 1997, he reported to the GOLF Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines in Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., and in July 1998 went to Okinawa, Japan for six months where he was involved in exercise FOAL EAGLE in Korea. After working with the Army in Fort Erwin, Calif., for a month, Speed went to Africa for three months on a security mission for the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
 
Speed and his wife, the former Ingrid D’Souza of Nairobi, were married in 2001.