Paul Guenther never coached a game at his first defensive coordinator job.
He took a leap of faith to Jacksonville University in 1997 because of Steve Gilbert, Guenther’s college head coach at Ursinus. Gilbert was the head coach for the new Jacksonville U football team, which wouldn’t kick off until the 1998 season. Guenther was an assistant on Gilbert’s 1996 staff at Ursinus and was offered the chance to run a defense, albeit for a team that wouldn’t even play that year.
Instead of playing games in 1997, Jacksonville’s first-ever recruiting class redshirted before the program’s first recorded season the following year.