Player Bio: Jared Backus - BUCKNELL OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE

Jared Backus

	Last College: Springfield '93
	Position: Defensive Coordinator/Inside Linebackers
	Experience: Fifth Season

Jared Backus returns for his fifth season at Bucknell and second as defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach. Previously at Bucknell Backus served as special teams coordinator and defensive line coach.

Backus will have a mostly veteran group of defensive players to work with in 2005, although the defensive line will see three new starters. Led by returning starers Dorian Petersen and Ryan Slater, he will have one of the league's premier linebacker corps, as well as three returning starters in the secondary.

In recent years Backus has mentored a number of standout players, including Second Team All-American Sean Conover, who graduated in 2006 and signed a free agent contract with the Tennessee Titans.

As defensive line coach, Backus' group combined for 20 sacks in 2004, including 10.5 from Conover. Backus also formerly oversaw the special teams units and coached the first-ever Patriot League Special Teams Player of the Year in Dante Ross, who returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in the same game at Georgetown in 2004. In 2002, Backus coached Bucknell's vaunted outside linebacker unit and coordinated the special teams. His special teams units blocked a school-record 10 kicks, and he helped senior OLB Joe Massey earn First Team All-PL honors for the second time.

Backus came to Bucknell from the University of Maine, where he served as the Black Bears' defensive line coach and special teams coordinator from 1999-2001. He helped guide Maine to the 2001 Atlantic 10 title and the quarterfinals of the I-AA playoffs.

A 1993 graduate of Springfield College, Backus was a two-year football letterman as an inside linebacker. His first coaching experience came as a defensive/strength and conditioning intern at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1994-95.

Backus then completed graduate assistantships at Springfield and Rutgers before taking a position as inside linebackers coach at Lebanon Valley. In 1998 he was the defensive secondary coach at Pace University. His wife, Amanda, is Associate Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Bucknell. The couple has a three-year-old son, Garrett, and will welcome its second child in August.