When new NIU head football coach Jerry Kill took over for Joe Novak, eight of his assistant coaches at Southern Illinois joined him.

One of the new assistants is running backs coach Rob Reeves, who has taken a somewhat unusual route to get where he is at.

This is because Reeves was never actually a running back.

The Saline, Mich., native was an All-American quarterback at Saginaw Valley State in Michigan, where he played under Kill from 1991-95.

“I ran the ball more than I threw it,” Reeves said, referring to the offense he ran in college.

“I think I enjoy coaching running backs because you can kind of get after them a little more,” Reeves said. “I like the physical end of coaching fullbacks and blocking, and having tailbacks that are physical and run hard.”

After Reeves’ playing days ended, he stayed with Kill at Saginaw where he was the quarterbacks coach from 1996-98.

Reeves followed Kill to Emporia State University in Kansas in 1998, where he got his first job as a running backs coach.

Following a two-year tenure at Emporia, Kill got the head coaching job at Southern Illinois.

Once again, Reeves followed his college head coach to Carbondale.

While at SIU, Reeves coached four All-American running backs.

One of the backs was current New York Giant running back Brandon Jacobs, who transferred to SIU from Auburn in 2004 and rushed for 992 yards (6.6 per carry) during his senior season.

Reeves also tutored another player who has since gained NFL experience in Arkee Whitlock, who signed with the Vikings as a free agent last season.

Whitlock was a two-time All-American and a finalist for the Walter Payton Award, the football championship subdivision version of the Heisman trophy.

“Any time you’ve coached a guy who’s playing at the highest level, it’s definitely very exciting,” Reeves said. “We can track through all the running backs, and it wasn’t because I was there coaching them, it was because we recruited great running backs.”

Reeves will have a deep field of running backs this season, with 1,000-yard rusher Justin Anderson, freshman Me’co Brown, and a healthy Montell Clanton.

“We got a big stable of running backs right now,” Reeves said. “Were definitely very talented and we’ve got a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things.”