BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – As the Roncalli High School football team set sights on its third straight state title in 2004, Hall of Fame head coach Bruce Scifres feared he’d be without one of his best players.
Then-senior defensive lineman Pat Kuntz, a team leader and starter on the first two state championship teams, had a broken arm. While he never doubted Kuntz wanted to play – even without a cast, Scifres joked – doctors first put Kuntz in a cast that extended all the way up his arm. Scifres recalled Kuntz talking them down to a smaller cast that allowed him to bend his elbow.
Despite his injury, Kuntz made eight tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and helped the Roncalli defense pitch a second-half shutout to three-peat as Indiana Class 4A champions with a 35-10 win over Wawasee.
“That did not hamper him in the least,” Scifres said in an interview with HoosiersNow. “He still played with every bit as much intensity. Even through injury, he was a warrior. … He would play through anything.”
Kuntz went on to play at Notre Dame, where he was a three-year starter from 2005-08. He later signed with the Indianapolis Colts as an undrafted free agent, but quickly learned it’d be a tough challenge competing for playing time on a defensive line with Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis.
“I ended up getting cut, and I had a huge chunk of my soul taken out because it’s always hard when you end playing football or your career is ended, but it’s harder when you don’t make that decision. Somebody else did,” Kuntz said in an interview with Indiana broadcaster Rhett Lewis. “So as I was trying to fill that void, naturally I was brought back into football and coaching.”
Kuntz now takes over as Indiana’s defensive tackles coach, coming over from James Madison alongside Curt Cignetti and six other coaches. But getting to this point required Kuntz to go back to his roots at Roncalli.
Following his stint with the Colts, Kuntz joined Scifres’ staff as Roncalli’s defensive line coach. Scifres believes the same traits that made Kuntz a standout player – his work ethic, love for the game, intensity, toughness and charisma – helped him excel as a coach.
Scifres described Kuntz as a bright coach with a knack for the schematic aspects of football. But he also brought the same aggressive, all-out demeanor he carried as a player to his role as a coach.
Beyond the X’s and O’s of football, Scifres stressed to all his assistants the importance of creating a unique connection with their position group to the point where, “those players want to run through a brick wall for them.” Kuntz drew respect because of his playing career, and Scifres said his sense of humor made him likable among players and coaches.
“Pat has always been Pat,” Scifres said.
“But there was no doubt his position players knew when it was time to go to work, it was time to go to work. When it was time to be intense and tough and absolutely motivated, they knew that was what they had to do.”
Following four years as Roncalli’s defensive line coach, Kuntz was promoted to defensive coordinator. In this role, Scifres recalls the Kuntz-led Roncalli defense created havoc in the backfield with frequent stunts and blitzes, in line with his playing style.
Kuntz coached his alma mater from 2010-15, but Scifres knew he had greater aspirations.
“Quite frankly, I knew his time with us at Roncalli was limited,” Scifres said. “... We were blessed with whatever time we had with him at Roncalli because he’d be going on to bigger and better things.”
Kuntz got his first collegiate job at Indiana as a defensive graduate assistant during the 2016 and 2017 seasons. He later moved on to become the defensive line coach at Virginia Military Institute from 2018-21, helping them win the 2020 Southern Conference title.
Kuntz first began working on Cignetti’s staff during the 202f season, James Madison’s first at the FBS level. But it didn’t take the Dukes any time to adjust to heightened competition, especially with Kuntz’s group up front.
In 2022, James Madison ranked second among FBS teams with 79.5 rushing yards allowed and 8.6 tackles for loss per game. The already dominant group improved by allowing just 61.5 rushing yards and making 9.1 tackles per game, ranking No. 1 in the FBS.
Kuntz said working for Cignetti and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines has made him a better coach from a teaching perspective.
“It’s one thing to coach football, but it’s another thing to teach football,” Kuntz said. “And the smarter you can get your players, the more production you’re going to have.”
Kuntz teaches his defensive tackles to play with high football IQ and know what’s happening around them, like the offensive line’s stance and stagger, where the skill position players are lined up and pre-snap tendencies. Mastering those things will allow them to play aggressively.
At James Madison, Kuntz was the defensive line coach, but now he has a more specific role as Indiana’s defensive tackles coach, with Buddha Williams coaching defensive ends. Now laser-focused on just two players on Indiana’s defense, Kuntz said he has more time to be refined and detailed with the interior linemen.
“Our scheme and what people are going to see at IU, especially up front, it’s very productive,” Kuntz said. “And it allows our guys up front to never block themselves, make fast, violent, vertical decisions, with an ultimate job description of inside shoulder tackle the ball carrier.”
Kuntz’s group of Hoosiers contains a mix of returners and transfers. Indiana returns Marcus Burris Jr. but lost defensive tackles like Philip Blidi (Auburn), Patrick Lucas Jr. (Memphis) and LeDarrius Cox (UAB). Cignetti replaced them with Kent State transfer CJ West and James Madison transfers James Carpenter and Tyrique Tucker.
West is ranked fifth among incoming Indiana transfers, per On3, after making the All-MAC third team as a senior in 2023. Carpenter made nine tackles for loss and four sacks in 2023, landing on the All-Sun Belt second team and receiving an All-American honorable mention by College Football Network.
Kuntz said Carpenter still needs to improve because the Big Ten is a higher level, but he’s excited to coach him for another year.
“He’s going to surprise a lot of people with the production and just how tough he is,” Kuntz said. “What people don’t understand about him is the movement skills are very impressive, very impressive, and what I call being slippery. Slippery is being able to slip blocks, get off blocks, use hands well and still be physical and powerful and be able to take on combination blocks as well.”
Kuntz said he got into coaching because he wants to leave the game better than he found it. He’s moved quickly through the coaching ranks following the final season of his college career in 2008. Working his way from Roncalli to a grad assistant job at Indiana, plus stints at Virginia Military Institute and James Madison, now he’s at his highest level yet as a coach in the Big Ten.
Scifres said Kuntz’s rise is a result of his love and passion for football, high energy and intelligence.
“I think he’s reflective enough to know of the powerful impact of athletics in general, but football, in particular, had on his life,” Scifres said. “And I think he’s energized by knowing that he has the opportunity now to pass that on to the players that he serves.”
“He’s the complete package, and it’s worked out well for him. His work ethic, along with those other characteristics, have put him in a position to be successful and to work at a really high level even at a relatively young age.”
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