Isaiah Jackson returned to South Dakota State football as special teams coordinator in January 2025.
"Isaiah is a part of our football family and I have been impressed with his growth throughout his career," Jackrabbit head coach Dan Jackson said. "I was really impressed with how his units played last year and he's going to be a guy who can build really strong culture within the special teams units, but also have great relationships with everybody on the team."
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Jackson's hiring marked a return to Brookings for the native of Chandler, Arizona, who lettered at linebacker for the Jackrabbits from 2006-09. He ranked fifth on the team with 63 tackles in 2008 and tied for seventh with 52 stops as a senior in 2009, when the Jackrabbits made their first-ever appearance in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
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For the past eight seasons, Jackson served on the coaching staff at UC Davis, which won a Big Sky Conference championship in 2018 and earned berths in the FCS playoffs three times (2018, 2021, 2024). He primarily coached the linebackers before moving to special teams coordinator in 2024.
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Jackson began his coaching career at the University of Sioux Falls, working the 2010 seasons as a graduate assistant linebackers coach for the NAIA national champion Cougars, followed by three more seasons working with the team's defensive line. He then moved on to West Virginia State, where he coached special teams, linebackers and the defensive line from 2014-16. He also coached on two different occasions in the International Federation of American Football, including help lead the American National Football Team to the 2015 IFAF World Championship.
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In addition, Jackson participated in the Bill Walsh Coaching Fellowship with the Arizona Cardinals during the summer of 2022.