SAN ANTONIO — UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor has hired NFL and college coaching veteran DeNarius McGhee as the Roadrunners’ wide receivers coach.
A former two-time state champion quarterback at Euless Trinity High School, McGhee has coached numerous star wide receivers, including Nico Collins, Tank Dell, Xavier Hutchinson, Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed and Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the NFL, as well as Utah State’s all-conference duo of Brady Boyd and Braden Pegan in his previous stop in the collegiate ranks.
McGhee comes to San Antonio from Utah State, where he spent the 2025 season as the Aggies’ pass game coordinator and wide receivers coach. He helped lead Utah State to an appearance in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Offensively, the Aggies finished the season ranked second in the Mountain West Conference in scoring offense (30.9 points per game) and passing yards per completion (13.27 avg), third in total offense (409.5 ypg) and fourth in passing offense (247.0). He recruited and developed Pegan, a first-team all-conference performer and Biletnikoff Award Watch List selection who caught 60 passes for 926 yards and five touchdowns, and Boyd, an honorable mention all-league pick who had 46 receptions for 743 yards and eight TDs.
In 2024, McGhee was the assistant wide receivers coach for the New Orleans Saints. His wide receivers group averaged 219.4 yards per game and caught 21 touchdown passes, amassing 1,836 yards after contact.
Prior to his time with the Saints, he served four years as an offensive assistant with the Houston Texans, including being a member of the 2023 staff that helped Houston improve from a 3-13-1 record in 2022 to winning the AFC South Division title and capturing an AFC Wild Card Playoff victory over Cleveland. As a team, Houston finished the regular season with the fewest giveaways in the NFL (14) and its passing attack ranked second in the NFL in pass plays over 25 yards (41).
Houston's offensive attack blossomed with the development of several key offensive contributors. Rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud captured Associated Press NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors, completing 319-of-499 passes for 4,108 yards, 23 touchdowns and a 100.8 passer rating. A pair of young wideouts also developed in Nico Collins and Tank Dell. In his third season, Collins had the best season of his career with 80 catches for 1,297 yards and eight touchdowns with a franchise-record 25 receptions of 20-plus yards. As a rookie, Dell finished with 47 receptions for 709 yards and seven touchdowns through the first 11 games before suffering a season-ending injury. He also helped coach Laremy Tunsil, a 2020 Pro Bowl Selection for the Texans.
McGhee spent three seasons (2017-19) on staff at his alma mater, Montana State. He coached quarterbacks in 2017 and running backs from 2018-19, capped off by an 11-win campaign in 2019 that marked the Bobcats' first season with double-digit wins since he quarterbacked the team in 2012. McGhee also served as a recruiting coordinator in his final season with the program.
During his coaching tenure in Bozeman, he led the development of All-American Isaiah Infase, the first true freshman to rush for over 1,000 yards in school history. He also developed quarterback Chris Murray, a 2017 All-American and the 2016 Big Sky Freshman of the Year who improved his passing rating from 110.6 to 122.6 under McGhee’s tutelage and finished second in the FCS in rushing yards by a quarterback.
McGhee also received his first NFL coaching experience when he served a Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship in 2018 training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs.
McGhee spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons as a graduate assistant at North Carolina State after he began his coaching career as a quality control coach at Florida Atlantic in 2014.
A four-year starter at Montana State, McGhee is that program’s all-time winningest quarterback. He holds school records for career passing yards (11,203) and touchdowns (79) and remains the only player in program history to win Big Sky MVP twice (2010 and 2012). A four-time all-conference performer, he led the Bobcats to conference championships in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and garnered All-America recognition as a freshman (2010) and junior (2012). McGhee played for the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2014 before starting his coaching career.
McGhee, who is a native of Euless, Texas, but was born in and spent his formative years in McComb, Mississippi, graduated from Montana State in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in business management and marketing.
He and his wife Alethia have three children, sons Xzavier and Zion and daughter Grace.
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