Brazil: Marcus Herford kicks off season as new HC for Cruzeiro Esporte Clube

AFI | American Football | 04/24/2022

Graphic: Igor Lazarevic

The Brazilian club team, Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, have signed Marcus Herford as head coach for the 2022 season.

Cruzeiro kicks off its regular season in the FEMFA – Federação Mineira de Futebol Americano – Sunday, April 24.

Herford most recently served as offensive coordinator for the Berlin Thunder of the European League of Football in 2021.

“I am super excited and blessed to be part of the Cruzeiro Futebol Americano organization. We have been working hard for the past couple months and I look forward to hitting the field with these young men here. We have a very good group that I believe have a chance to do some amazing things with continued hard work. This is my first game as a Head Coach since 2017 in Kiel and that I am very excited about.”

This is not Herford’s first stint in Brazil. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, he served as offensive coordinator for the Galo, based in Belo Horizonte, where he led an offense that averaged 31 points a game in nine games including the playoffs.

Before arriving in Brazil, Herford had coached the offense for the Milano Seamen in the Italian Football League, for two years (2018 and 2019) and was the architect behind the highest-scoring team in Italy. With Herford running the offense, the Seamen won two straight Italian titles after capturing the 2017 championship. Prior to arriving in Italy, he served as head coach of the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes (2016-2017). The 36-year-old native of DeSoto, Texas led the Hurricanes to the German semifinals two years in a row and in 2017 produced the second-best offense in Germany averaging 405.7 yards per game.

An outstanding receiver/kick returner at the University of Kansas, he was named a Preseason All-America Return Specialist in 2008 and Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year in 2007. In 2015, as offensive coordinator at Kentucky Wesleyan he coached Keenan Cole, currently a wide receiver for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Xavier Mitchell, now with the Seamen and who was one of the leading receivers in the German Football League in 2017.