SEATTLE – When Super Bowl LX kicks off in a little under two weeks, there will be a District 9 flavor to it.
Andrew Janocko, a 2007 graduate of Clearfield High School, where he played for D9’s all-time winningest coach, his dad, Tim, is the quarterbacks coach for the Seattle Seahawks, the NFC Champion, who will take on the New England Patriots.
“It has been a whirlwind,” Tim Janocko, who was 307-121-3 in 38 years at the Bison head coach, told the YDL Sports Network in a phone interview. “We just flew in (Monday) night from Seattle. We were out there for the past two games. We actually saw two games prior to that, the Colts and the Rams (in the regular season). We came home for a week and a half and then came back out and saw the (San Fransico 49ers in the NFC Division round) and then stayed the week and saw the game against the Rams, the conference championship. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been almost like a dream, honestly.”
Tim Janocko said it was hard to ever imagine his son coaching in the Super Bowl, even though Andrew is in his 13th year as an NFL assistant coach.
“It’s so hard,” Tim Janocko said. “I know how hard it is to win a football game at any level. It is so difficult to win a football game in the NFL because of the parity. Everybody is good. A team that is 3-10 can beat the first-place team in the conference on any day. It is so hard. To get to the Super Bowl is very difficult to do.”
Andrew Janocko’s journey to a Super Bowl coach hasn’t been an easy one.
After graduating from Pitt, where he was a backup quarterback and holder, he was a graduate assistant at Rutgers in 2011 before getting his first shot at the NFL as an offensive quality control coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 20212 and 2013.
He went back to the college ranks at then NCAA Division II Mercyhurst Prep as the quarterbacks coach in 2014 before returning to the NFL in 2015 as the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive quality control coach.
After two years as the offensive quality control coach with the Vikings, he got his first real break, being named the Vikings assistant offensive line coach in 2017 and then being promoted to the co-offensive line coach in 2018. In 2018, he was once again the assistant offensive line coach with Minnesota before being named wide receivers coach for the 2020 season and quarterbacks coach in 2021.
But following the 2021 season, the Vikings changed head coaches, and Andrew Janocko found himself moving on to the Chicago Bears, where he was the quarterbacks coach in 2022 and 2023.
He was on the move again in 2024, becoming the New Orleans Saints quarterbacks coach for a year. While with the Saints, ESPN even did a feature story on him for his innovative way of trying to get the Saints QB prepared to play in a cold-weather game.
When the Saints made a coaching change, and their former offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, took the job in Seattle, Janocko went with him as the quarterbacks coach.
“That’s today’s NFL,” Tim Janocko said. “You just have to be resilient and keep grinding and keep working. That’s something Andrew has done his whole career. We are really proud of him. That’s what we do. That’s what he does. He is resilient. It has paid off.”
Andrew getting to coach in the Super Bowl is a source of pride in the Clearfield area.
While he won’t be the first D9 athlete to participate in the Super Bowl, East Brady’s Jim Kelly played in four Super Bowls (XXV, XXVI, XVII, XVIII) for the Buffalo Bills, and St. Marys’ Dan Conners played in Super Bowl II with the Oakland Raiders, for example (this is potentially not a complete list), he is definitely on a select list.
“Everyone has been really kind,” Tim Janocko said. “We have received a lot of support. A lot of people have made comments to us and sent us good lucks and stuff like that. It has been really wonderful to see. People have been so kind. We are very appreciative of that.”
The football coach in Tim Janocko said he could see earlier in the season that Seattle had a shot at doing something special this year.
“I told my wife (Trina) when they lost the first game against the Rams (21-19 on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles) that I thought I saw a lot,” Tim Janocko said. “If they had not had the four turnovers, they would have probably won that one. I told her, this team has a chance to go somewhere.”
Tim Janocko said what he likes about the Seahawks is how they are strong in all three phases of the game.
“The thing in their favor is they play all three facets of the game very well,” Tim Janocko said. This head coach, (Mike) Macdonald, he really emphasizes special teams, something I always liked. They are really good on special teams, they are good on defense, and they play complementary football, offense and defense. Their offense is very balanced. They are run-oriented, but they play action and hurt you. They have some real stars in (Jaxon) Smith-Njiba and Cooper Kiupp (at wide receiver), and the running back (Kenneth) Walker (II) has now really come on.”
Tim Janocko, for obvious reasons, also mentioned the play of Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, a player who was all but left for dead in the NFL prior to last season.
Darnold, who was the third overall pick by the New York Jets in 2018, was basically run out of New York following three seasons and then bounced around in Carolina and San Fransico three years before landing as the Vikings backup quarterback in 2024.
Forced into the starting role for the Vikings during the preseason, he excelled, taking Minnesota to a 14-3 regular-season record and the playoffs. But after a poor showing in the postseason, the Vikings allowed Darnold to leave as a free agent, and Seattle signed him.
This season, he led the Seahawks to a 14-3 mark and the top seed in the NFC while completing a career-high 67.7 percent of his passes, throwing for 4,048 yards and 25 touchdowns. In two postseason games, he is completing nearly 70% of his passes for 470 yards and four touchdowns. That includes him going 25 of 36 for 346 yards and three scores in the NFC title game against the Rams on Sunday.
“What can I say?” Tim Janocko said. “My son spends every day with Sam Darnold. I have met Sam several times, and he is a really, really good person. He is just a really down-to-earth, humble guy who you can really root for.”
Tim Janocko said watching his son coach in such big games is much more nerve-wracking than anything he did as a high-level high school football coach.
“I am nervous already,” Janocko said with a laugh. “I am more nervous than at anypoint in my coaching career. This past weekend, my hands were shaking in the stadium. I told my wife, I told Trina, I am retired, I am not supposed to be doing this. It is worse to be the father of the coach than the coach. You want to see your kids do so well. My daughter is a great teacher here at Clearfield for special needs kids. She has been very successful. You want to see your kids do well. It’s harder, no question.”
