Brandon Torrey is in his third season as NSU’s offensive line coach heading into the 2021 campaign.
Torrey’s first season with the Spartans featured a number of team and individual accomplishments. The Spartans placed a school-record four linemen on the All-MEAC teams. Tackle Kenneth Kirby was named to the All-MEAC first team, guard Justin Redd and center Dominic Jordan were second-team selections and guard/center Jalen Powell was voted to the third team. Redd also earned FCS Sophomore All-America honorable mention by Hero Sports.
Torrey’s charges helped NSU set a new school single-season Division I scoring record, averaging 28.9 points overall and 31.8 in MEAC play. The Spartans also averaged 144.7 rushing yards per game on the year, the third-best mark in the MEAC and the most by a Spartan team since 2011. That included three games with 200+ yards on the ground and a season high of 272 at Howard – the most rushing yards by a Spartan team since 2010.
A Super Bowl winner and former collegiate All-American as a player, Torrey is in his sixth year in the coaching profession. Torrey coached the tight ends from 2017-18 at Monroe College, a junior college in New York. There he mentored current Spartan Shawn McFarland, a first-team all-conference performer at Monroe. Torrey also helped coach the Mustangs’ special teams, leading the kickoff return unit to a No. 2 ranking in the country in 2018.
Prior to his stint in junior college, Torrey coached the offensive line at Howard University, his alma mater and NSU’s MEAC rival. He served in a volunteer capacity in 2015 before taking the reigns as offensive line coach in 2016. During his tenure, the Howard offense produced the school’s first 1,000-yard tailback in over a decade in Anthony Philyaw, who ran for 1,230 yards in 2016. Philyaw also set a school single-game record for rushing yards that season (281).
Before moving to the coaching ranks, Torrey played six years of professional football, including stints with the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders and Arizona Cardinals. He was a member of the XLII Super Bowl champion Giants team which defeated the undefeated New England Patriots en route to the championship following the 2007 season.
A native of Durham, North Carolina, Torrey played his college football at Howard, where he was a force on the offensive line. He set the school record for most consecutive starts, seeing time at guard and tackle over his four years. He was a multiple time first-team All-MEAC performer. In 2004, he was a second-team All-American, won the Pigskin Club’s "Metropolitan Player of the Year” and was voted Howard’s Offensive Player of the Year. He represented Howard University as a starter in the HBCU All-Star Classic.
Torrey earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Howard in 2015.
