Newly hired Miami Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley can sleep comfortably in South Florida nowadays, but some overnight stays in Pitt’s football facility helped him get there.
Hafley, 46, spent five seasons as an assistant at Pitt under coach Dave Wannstedt from 2006-10. He was coaching defensive backs at Albany before making a bold career move two decades ago to join the FBS program as a graduate assistant.
“When I left to go to Pitt, I got dropped off and I slept under my desk for two years,” Hafley told reporters Thursday at an introductory press conference in Miami Gardens, Fla. “What would I say to that guy now? I’d say it worked.”
New #Dolphins HC Jeff Hafley told a story about sleeping under his desk for two full years (2006–07) after going to Pitt to become a defensive assistant.
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) January 22, 2026
What would he tell that person now? “It worked!”
He explains why he decided to do that here: https://t.co/xKq55uDAs1 pic.twitter.com/RLIZslzoHS
Hafley served the past two seasons as defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers after four seasons as head coach at Boston College. After leaving Pitt, he coached defensive backs at Rutgers for one season before leaping to the NFL.
He worked two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, two with the Cleveland Browns and three with the San Francisco 49ers before returning to the college ranks. He spent the 2019 season as a co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State before making the move to Boston College for a head coaching job.
But the stories of him sleeping in his Pitt office followed him to Miami.
“Here’s why I did it,” said Hafley, who’d left a full-time job at Albany to work for Pitt defensive coordinator Paul Rhodes, who later joined him at Boston College. “What I wanted to do is, I wanted to have no regrets, and I wanted to give everything that I had because I had sacrificed a lot. I really didn’t go out. I didn’t do anything but coach football. I missed family weddings, I missed friends and I just said, ‘I’m going to give everything I got for two years, and I want to see where this takes me.’ And that’s what I did.”
Hafley eventually joined the Pitt staff as a defensive secondary coach, but only after spending two seasons sleeping in his office as a graduate assistant.
“I woke up real early,” he said. “I was always the first one in, and I was always the last to leave. So at least I could say no one could beat me in and out of the office, but I gave it everything that I had so I’d have no regrets. Then two years later, coach Wannstedt hired me to be the secondary coach. I just think it’s a life lesson of hard work, and I mean really hard work and sacrifice. If you do it, they pay off.
“Now, I think that guy might have been a little crazier than I am now, but it worked.”
