A coaching veteran of more than two decades, Daniel Gritti is in his second season on the UTSA staff. He was promoted to assistant director of player personnel in 2026 after serving as an offensive assistant in 2025.
During his first year in San Antonio, the Roadrunners registered a seven-win campaign that was capped with a 57-20 rout of FIU in the First Responder Bowl. Gritti worked with an offense that piled up 5,444 total yards, an average of 418.8 per game to rank 28th in the FBS in 2025. UTSA racked up 2,225 rushing yards and 3,219 passing yards, totals that both rank in the top five in school history. The group cleared a path for a potent 1-2 punch in the backfield in Robert Henry Jr. and Will Henderson III. Henry, an honorable mention All-American and first-team all-conference performer, became the third 1,000-yard rusher in program history with 1,045 yards, while Henderson dashed for 866, and both running backs averaged 6.9 yards per carry on the season.
Gritti joined the Roadrunners following a three-year stint at Rice in 2022-24, helping guide the Owls to a pair of bowl games. In 2023, Gritti was named senior offensive assistant/analytics coordinator/special advisor to the head coach after serving in various capacities during the 2022 campaign.
Gritti has 11 years of head coaching experience with a 56-45 overall record. He led the program at Rhodes College in Memphis from 2011 to 2015 and then was head coach at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, from 2016 to 2021.
He also has mentored several assistants and players who have advanced to leadership positions, including four NCAA Division III head coaches, as well as Drew Petzing, who is the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions, Tony Harding, the director of college scouting for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Marshall Ouim, the director of football strategy for the New England Patriots.
Gritti rebuilt the Millikin program, which had not had a winning season since 2009. He led the Big Blue to a 7-3 record in 2017 — their best mark since 2003 — including a 5-3 record in College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) action, the program’s best conference ledger since 2001. In 2017, Millikin also knocked off a nationally ranked opponent and set new school records for pass completions (206) and passing yards (2,842) in a season. Over the next four seasons under Gritti’s leadership, the Big Blue posted a 20-13 record including the first back-to-back winning seasons since 2002 and 2003. Gritti finished with a 27-26 record in his six years at Millikin.
Prior to his tenure at Millikin, Gritti successfully resurrected the football program at Rhodes College, posting a 29-19 record. In 2013, he led the Lynx to an 8-2 record and the school’s first Southern Athletics Association (SAA) Championship in 26 years.
Under Gritti’s leadership, Rhodes had back-to-back 8-2 (5-1 in SAA) seasons in 2013 and 2014, setting a school record for most wins over a two-year period. The five victories in SAA play were the most conference wins in a single season in Lynx history. The 8-2 records were the best single season marks at Rhodes since 1985 and the most wins in a season since 1977. In his five seasons at Rhodes, Gritti compiled a 29-19 (.604) career record.
Gritti’s defenses at Rhodes were consistently among the best in the conference and nationally. In 2014, Rhodes was ranked second in the country in team sacks (41), second in fourth-down defense and 12th in tackles for loss. His special teams earned top-30 NCAA Division III rankings in seven different statistical categories.
In addition to the on-field success at Rhodes, Gritti recruited the two largest and most geographically diverse recruiting classes in program history and raised the team grade point average from 2.8 to 3.2. Gritti raised $4 million for the program that helped to fund a new FieldTurf field with lights, a varsity athletic weight room and an endowed fund to provide budget enhancements for the football program.
Prior to coming to Rhodes, Gritti served as an assistant coach at the University of Chicago and Middlebury College. At both stops, Gritti was part of conference championship teams.
Gritti was the special teams coordinator at Chicago in 2009-10. In his first season, he also coached the linebackers and in 2010, his role expanded to directing the front seven.
In his four seasons at Middlebury, Gritti served as special teams coordinator and he also coached the linebackers and defensive backs.
As an assistant coach, Gritti developed a reputation for aggressive defenses and dynamic special teams. On his way to the 2010 University Athletic Association championship at Chicago, Gritti’s defense finished second in the nation in sacks and third in tackles for loss. Similarly, his special teams tied an NCAA record for most punts blocked for touchdowns in a season with six.
At Middlebury, Gritti was part of the school’s first outright conference championship in 15 years and a defense that finished in the top 20 nationally in seven different categories, including third in scoring defense and fifth in pass efficiency defense in 2007.
While at Middlebury, Gritti coached Stephen Haushka, a place-kicker who went on to a 13-year NFL career with the Seahawks.
Gritti began his coaching career as a defensive quality control assistant at Indiana, where he was reunited with his mentor Gerry DiNardo, who served as Vanderbilt’s head football coach while Gritti was an undergraduate.
Gritti earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and U.S. history from Vanderbilt in 1995. He earned a juris doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1998.