Bio

Jeff Simmons begins his 16th season as a full-time assistant and 20th overall on the Carnegie Mellon staff in 2025. During his first nine years on staff and from 2017 through the 2021, Simmons was the running backs and wide receivers coach and at the start of 2022 continued coaching the wideouts.
 
Simmons was the offensive special teams coordinator after becoming a full-time assistant through the 2018 season and then was promoted to special teams coordinator in 2019.

The 2024 season concluded with place kicker Justin Caputo leading the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) in scoring for kickers with 83 points for the second straight season, while also leading the conference with 10 field goals and 53 converted point-after-attempts. Simmons also mentored wide receiver Brendan McCullough who broke the single-season program record with 71 receptions.

The Tartans special teams in 2023 led the nation with 10 total blocked kicks and eight blocked punts. The special teams unit set a single-game school record with three blocked punts against Thiel. The Tartans also didn’t allow a block punt all season which tied them for tops in the nation. Caputo ended the season tops in Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) in field goals per game and field goal percentage, while ranking fifth and 15th, respectively, nationally.

In 2022, the Tartans second straight PAC championship season, Simmons coached wide receiver Kris Hughes who ended his career as the program’s all-time leader in touchdown receptions with 28. Hughes also ended his career third all-time in receiving yards with 1,925.  

Simmons mentored running back Tre Vasiliadis during the 2021 season, as the back led the PAC with 1,120 rushing yards and ranked 19th in Division III. Vasiliadis became the fifth player in Carnegie Mellon to rush for 1,000 yards in a season and was named to the D3football.com All-America team.
 
As running backs coach, Simmons coached Sam Benger who became Carnegie Mellon’s career rushing leader his junior season and ended his career with 5,376 yards and 390 points, the most in program history. The William V. Campbell Trophy Finalist, regarded as the academic equivalent of the Heisman Trophy and given annually to the absolute football best scholar-athlete in the nation amongst all Divisions, became the first back in program history to rush for 1,000 yards in three straight seasons.
 
During his junior campaign, Benger set the school’s single-season rushing touchdown and scoring record with 28 touchdowns and 170 points. Benger repeated as the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Offensive Player of the Year following the 2016 campaign. He was also named to two All-American squads - American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and D3football.com. He was awarded Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III South Offensive Player of the Year honors.
 
In 2015, Benger was named to three All-American squads – American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), Associated Press (AP) and D3football.com. Benger led the nation in rushing with 2,092 yards, averaging 190.2 yards per game on his way to becoming the school’s single-season rushing leader. Benger was the 21st player in Division III history to reach the 2,000-yard plateau. Also in 2015, Simmons coached place kicker Gabe Renna who set the school’s single-season point-after-attempt record with 56 conversions. Renna ended his career in 2016 as the school’s career leader with 109 PATs while converting the last 48 attempts of his career.
 
Simmons also mentored the program’s all-time leading receiver in 2017 in John Prather. The wideout set the all-time career marks in receiver for yards (3,077), receptions (194) and then touchdown receptions (25).
 
Simmons played his collegiate career at Slippery Rock University from 1994-1997 as a quarterback before finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree in human resources at Geneva College. His resume includes tenures as a high school quarterbacks and defensive secondary coach at Kiski Prep, and quarterbacks coach at Seneca Valley, Gateway and Shaler High Schools.
 
Simmons is the grandson of former Carnegie Mellon head football coach and College Football Hall of Famer Chuck Klausing, who later coached at Kiski Prep with Simmons as his quarterback. Kiski Prep won the Inter-Scholastic Prep School League during Simmons’ senior year.
 
Since 1994, Simmons has coached at the Team Klausing Wing-T Football Camps each summer throughout the United States, a camp that his grandfather started in 1964. Over the past few years, Simmons has taken over running the on-field coordination of the camp. The camp promotes team skills, life skills and team leadership. Former Tartans Offensive Coordinator Rich Erdelyi continues to assist Simmons at these Wing-T camps annually.
 
Simmons and his wife, Colleen, reside in Hempfield Township and have an 18-year-old daughter Hayden, a first-year student at Carnegie Mellon, and 17-year-old son Luc.