New Packers DL Coach Vince Oghobaase Shares Love for Coaching

After two seasons as assistant defensive line coach, Vince Oghobaase was promoted as part of the new coaching staff.

Packers defensive line coach Vince Oghobaase | Bill Huber/Packers On SI

GREEN BAY – Vince Oghobaase was a four-year starter at Duke who got a shot in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins as an undrafted rookie in 2010.

Oghobaase wasn’t quite good enough to have an NFL career as a player, but he’s made it as a coach. As part of the Green Bay Packers’ new defensive coaching staff under coordinator Jonathan Gannon, he was promoted to defensive line coach by coach Matt LaFleur.

“I want to thank Coach LaFleur for giving me the opportunity to be the defensive line coach for the Green Bay Packers. I don’t take this opportunity lightly,” Oghobaase, who followed Jeff Hafley from Boston College to Green Bay in 2024 and served as the assistant defensive line coach the past two seasons, said at Lambeau Field on Tuesday.

Oghobaase was born and raised in Houston and started playing football in fifth grade. At Duke, he graduated as one of the school’s career leaders in sacks and tackles for losses and earned some All-American honors as a senior. He signed with Miami as an undrafted free agent, spent time on Washington’s practice squad and played a bit in United Football League.

In 2011, he returned to Duke as a graduate assistant, setting the wheels in motion for his new job with the Packers.

“I knew at a certain point when I got done, I wanted to go back into athletics through coaching or on the administrative side. And it was coaching that was my calling,” he said. “I just could not step away from the game at all. The camaraderie, the competition, the brotherhood, the relationships that you curate over the years, is something that I just could not get away from.

“Even as a coach, you’re still competing every day with yourself, with the other coaches on the other side of the football, because that’s just what this game does. That’s what really got me into it. I’m giving back to the game that gave so much to me. And I love seeing guys have success on the field and off the field. And the relationship piece is something that lasts a very long time if it’s done the correct way.”

From there, Oghobaase was a graduate assistant at Ohio State from 2013 through 2015 before getting his first shot in the NFL as assistant defensive line coach for the 49ers in 2016 and 2017. It’s there where he crossed paths with Hafley.

After the 2018 and 2019 seasons at UCLA, he reunited at Boston College in 2020 when Hafley was named head coach. When Hafley became defensive coordinator for the Packers in 2024, Oghobaase joined the staff.

When Hafley hired him in 2020, he mentioned Oghobaase’s time with esteemed Ohio State defensive line coach Larry Johnson. That’s who Oghobaase referenced on Tuesday, as well, when asked who were the key figures in his rise in the profession..

“I’ve worked with Coach L.J. at Ohio State years and years and years ago – still very close to him,” he said. “One of the best to still be doing it. Very, very meticulous, very detailed. Has a plan, a mission, a vision, a purpose, a goal. Guys trust and believe in what he’s saying, what he’s coaching.

“The film is the evidence. The guys he’s had drafted over the course of however many years he’s been coaching – multiple first-rounders. He’s done it all. He’s seen all types of different size ranges, heights, weights, what have you, and he knows how to get those guys to play his style of play, his style of ball. And that’s where I kind of got some of my techniques from.”

Oghobaase is a high-energy coach. He tore his Achilles during the joint practices against the Ravens last season when he tried to run downfield to congratulate his players.

“One thing I’m always going to be myself, and I want the players to be themselves,” he said. “I believe whenever you are in this position I’m in as a coach, you want guys to feel your energy, feel your passion because, ultimately, I want them to be great on the field.

“I live through them. Their failures are my failures, their wins are my wins, their success is my success. So, I believe they need to see that from the coach. We are in charge of leading our groups. We’re the managers of our groups. We have to motivate, lead, make sure these guys are getting everything we want to get out of them from a technique standpoint, finish standpoint, tackling, what have you, and I got to be the leader of that. So, my energy is my energy. But, ultimately, the message behind my energy that I think the guys are going to get a good feel for.”

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