Kennesaw State University Athletics

Joe Speed joined Brian Bohannon's staff as the running backs coach in June 2021.

Speed arrived from Western Carolina where he spent the spring season as the co-defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach. Previously, he spent two years as both an offensive (2019) and defensive (2020) analyst at UCLA under Chip Kelly.

Speed served a combined 13 seasons on staff with the renowned Paul Johnson at both Georgia Tech and Navy, including multiple years with Bohannon at the two programs.

He began his Georgia Tech career by coaching the inside linebackers. He would also coach the defensive backs (2013-15) and cornerbacks (2016-2018). While at Tech, Speed saw three of his players earn All-Atlantic Coast Conference 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. Speed was part of three bowl victories: The Sun Bowl (2012), the Orange Bowl (2014), and the TaxSlayer Bowl (2016), and coached in four other bowl games.
 
A 1996 graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Speed began his coaching career in 2000 as an executive administrator and military liaison at Navy in 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 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. Navy posted a 61-29 record in his tenure, 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. The Mids earned four-straight bowl berths during his second stint with the program.
 
Speed helped the Mids break a 21-year drought for claiming the Commander-in-Chief Trophy. In 2003, Navy began a streak of seven-consecutive seasons (2003-09) earning the Commander-in-Chief Trophy – the longest consecutive win streak since the trophy's creation in 1972. During his second stint, Navy was a perfect 8-0 against service academy rivals Air Force and Army with four-consecutive Commander-in-Chief's Trophies.
 
The Baltimore native was a four-year starter at safety for the 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.