Lafayette College Athletics

Donavon Nathaniel is in his second season on the Lafayette football staff, coaching the defensive line in 2024 before taking over the outside linebackers in 2025. 

Nathaniel’s first season on College Hill oversaw the significant progress of Jaylon Joseph, Tyree Morris and the defensive line. Morris was second on the team in tackles (65) and racked up five tackles for loss with two sacks. Joseph, who was coming off of a 2023 campaign in which he was the Patriot League Rookie of the Year, accounted for 20 tackles, seven tackles for loss and a sack.

Nathaniel comes to Lafayette from the University of Kansas football program where he spent the 2023 season as a defensive graduate assistant coaching the linebackers. Nathaniel coordinated opponent and self-scouting along with assisting with techniques and game strategies under Kansas head coach Lance Leipold. The Jayhawks finished with a 9-4 record and claimed a victory over UNLV in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. 

Prior to that, Nathaniel worked as a defensive graduate assistant at Georgia State in the Sun Belt Conference, mentoring the defensive line and outside linebackers from June 2022 to March 2023.

From 2019-22, Nathaniel worked at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, his alma mater, as the defensive line and strength coach for the football program as well as a health, fitness and recreation instructor. 

He graduated from Wisconsin-Platteville in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in health and human performance and served as a team captain in his senior season. While finishing his degree, Nathaniel joined the Wisconsin-Platteville women's basketball team coaching staff as an assistant. The Milwaukee native went on to earn his master's degree in sports administration, focused in intercollegiate athletics, from California University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

Updated 4/25