Chargers Defensive Coordinator Candidate Tracker<\/a> for the latest news.<\/p>\nHere are five things to know about O’Leary:<\/p>\n
O’Leary is coming off a year where he led the Western Michigan defense to quite the turnaround.<\/p>\n
He spent the 2025 season as the Western Michigan Defensive Coordinator and safeties coach and led one of the top defenses not only in the Mid-American Conference, but also the country.<\/p>\n
The Western Michigan defense ranked second in the conference in total defense (17.4 points per game), a mark that was also good for ninth in all the FBS.<\/p>\n
The unit was also second in yards allowed per game (305.5) in the MAC and 19th in the country allowing 179.9 passing yards per game.<\/p>\n
Before O’Leary led the turnaround at Western Michigan, he had his first NFL coaching experience with the Chargers.<\/p>\n
He spent the 2024 season as the safeties coach, as he helped All-Pro safety Derwin James Jr. get to his fourth NFL Pro Bowl selection.<\/p>\n
The safeties unit was a crucial part of the Chargers finishing the season with the top ranked scoring defense, as O’Leary’s unit led the NFL for sacks among the position (6.5) and tied for fifth with nine interceptions.<\/p>\n
They were stellar in coverage as well, allowing a 75.9 passer rating when targeted, good for third among NFL safety units.<\/p>\n
3. Time with Fighting Irish<\/p>\n
A bulk of his coaching career came at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n
O’Leary spent six seasons with the Fighting Irish in a multitude of roles and starting out as a defensive analyst in 2018.<\/p>\n
He would then hold the graduate assistant role before being named the defensive backs and safeties coach towards the end of his tenure.<\/p>\n
He coached six bowl games during his time in South Bend, including the College Football Playoff Semifinals at The Rose Bowl in 2020 and The Cotton Bowl in 2018.<\/p>\n
4. Working up college ranks<\/p>\n
O’Leary’s coaching career got started on the college level.<\/p>\n
Following his college football career he took a position as a Georgia State Graduate Assistant, focusing particularly on the defensive line before moving to the defensive backs the next year.<\/p>\n
He would then earn the position of safeties coach at Florida Tech in 2017, the last spot he held before joining the Fighting Irish.<\/p>\n
O’Leary had a student-athlete career before jumping into coaching.<\/p>\n
He was a wide receiver at Indiana State from 2011 to 2014, as he played in 27 games over his time at the school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chargers on Wednesday confirmed they have interviewed Chris O’Leary for their defensive coordinator position. Bookmark the Chargers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[4498,241,7,34,1014,262,2444,2443,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-712788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-articles-5-things-to-know","9":"tag-chargers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-homepage-cp","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-losangeleschargers","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115975788190876643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}