This week on THE DAWN, we caught up with Texas State head coach GJ Kinne as the Bobcats enter their first season in the Pac-12.
I’ve been tracking Coach Kinne since his recruiting days as a big-time QB prospect, and he’s been on a rocket ship in the coaching profession from the moment he traded his cleats for a whistle.
After sitting down with him it's clear he has an ‘It Factor’ that's translated straight into coaching, and that comes through during our conversation in the limited series, THE DAWN, presented by the Pac-12 and Y-Option.
Coach Kinne inherited a program that had never reached a bowl game, never beaten rival UTSA, and never notched a Power Four win. He got all three done in year one, and he credits it to instilling confidence and an aggressive, swing for the fences mindset from the start.
Coaching runs in GJ’s blood. His father spent decades as a Texas high school coach, and GJ played and worked under a run of respected names including Todd Graham, Gus Malzahn, Chad Morris, Mike Norvell, Chip Kelly, Ryan Day, Bill Musgrave, and Jeff Stoutland. But it was Super Bowl winning coach Doug Pederson who gave him advice early on that stuck: just be yourself.
That philosophy has carried him through head coaching stops at UIW and now Texas State as they enter the reimagined Pac-12.
Watching Coach Kinne build this thing from the ground up, I keep coming back to the same thought: the rocket ship isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
THE DAWN debuted July 1 across the Pac-12’s YouTube and Pac-12 Insider, the league’s 24/7 FAST channel. The series culminates with a finale featuring never-before-seen behind-the-scenes content from the building of this new league. It drops in August, right before the season kicks off.
