Jason Killday, assistant football coach and offensive coordinator, is in the middle of his second season with the Truman State University Bulldogs after six seasons with the Quincy University Hawks. During his time at Quincy, Killday coached the quarterbacks and wide receivers, along with overseeing recruitment and academic coordination.
Prior to Quincy, Killday served as the offensive coordinator at Lincoln-Way Central High School in New Lenox, Illinois, the assistant coach at Edwardsville High School in Edwardsville, Illinois and Sacred Heart-Griffin High School in Springfield, Illinois. He has coached in three Illinois State Championship games, taking the title in two of them. Last weekend, Killday returned to Quincy University and led the Bulldogs’ offense to an impressive 31-7 win against his former employer.
“It was good to go back to Quincy,” Killday said. “I made some great friends during my time there and it was good to see those people.”
He said there are still players at Quincy whom he coached, which made it interesting to stand on opposite sidelines. Killday said in some aspects of the game, he still uses a similar style of play in his approach at Quincy, however, he has also grown and made adjustments as a coach in many facets since coming to Truman.
Overall, Killday said he was pleased with the Bulldogs’ performance in the Saturday matchup against the Hawks, and he was pleased to see the team go 1-0 last week.
Sophomore running back Jordan Salima said Killday’s inaugural Quincy return meant even more to the players. He said the players did not let those emotions interfere with their focus, but it did add a little something to the Bulldog offensive drive on Saturday.
“Yeah Coach [Killday] was returning to his former school, and there’s always a sense of wanting to make them regret parting ways,” Salima said. “But Coach Killday explained to us that’s not really why this game meant more to him — the reason it did mean more is because he knows us as players, and he knows them as players.
“He knows the work that we put in during the offseason, and he knows the work they put in during the offseason. He knows how much we care about the program and how much they care about the program. See, Coach Killday knows the ins and outs of both sides, and he shared with us that one side is a little bit more deserving than the other. And that really stuck with us.”
Offensively speaking, Salima said Truman is on the edge of being a great program, but minor mistakes have been holding the team back. Salima said a sharp attention to detail really brought it all together for the Bulldog offense last weekend.
Salima said even though Killday is familiar with the Quincy football program, most of Truman’s game preparation came from watching film.
“Coach Killday’s approach for this game was to pound the ball, then take our shots when we have them,” Salima said. “We felt there were a lot of mismatches for us on the field, and Coach intended on exploiting them for it. All in all, our offense was consistent with what we usually run. We just executed much better.”
The Bulldogs will finish their season with two home games, first at noon against Southwest Baptist University on Nov. 4 and at 1 p.m. on Nov. 11 against McKendree University.