Entering his fourth season as an assistant football coach at Indiana State and his second as the Indiana State defensive coordinator is Jesse Minter.
In 2011, Minter's defensive boasted six All-Missouri Valley Football Conference selections as well as an All-American and a First Team Academic All-American.
Along the Sycamore defensive front in 2011, junior Ben Obaseki earned his first career All-American honor from the Associated Press. He also was named a First Team All-Missouri Valley Football Conference selection. He finished third in the MVFC's Defensive Player of the Year voting after leading the Sycamores with 7.5 sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss this season, tying for second and third in the MVFC, respectively, in those categories. Obaseki was also an impact player in goal line situations, rushing the ball five times for five touchdowns.
Alex Sewall, who carried a 3.73 grade point average in Exercise Science became the Sycamores' first Capital One Academic All-American since 1972, and also was named First Team All-Missouri Valley Football Conference, MVFC All-Academic as well as a Capital One Academic All-District Five Team member earlier this season. He was the 33rd Sycamore all-time in all sports to earn Academic All-American status and the eighth Indiana State football player. He was the first Sycamore football player to be named an Academic All-American since Dan Millington placed on the second team in 2009.
Other honorees for the Sycamore defensive in addition to Obaseki and Sewall was first teamer Aaron Archie, second team selection Aaron Archie and honorable mention selections Rod Hardy and Ryan Roberts. Sewall was joined by Julian Easterly on the MVFC All-Academic Team.
Minter helped the Sycamores enjoy a breakthrough season in 2010 as the team enjoyed a 6-5 record, a third place finish in the Missouri Valley Football Conference and the program's first winning campaign since 1996.
Individually, the Sycamores had five student-athletes on the defensive side of the ball honored by the MVFC following the 2010 season on its all-conference honors list. First team selections were DE Ben Obaseki and DB Alex Sewall. On the second team was LB Jacolby Washington. Earning honorable mention status were LB Aaron Archie and DB Calvin Burnett.
ISU also had an outstanding defense, tallying a season-best four interceptions and making a pair of fourth quarter red zone stops at Youngstown State to help secure a road league victory. The Sycamores gave up just 184.6 yards per game through the air, which was third in the league and 38th nationally.
Minter helped Miles earn his first collegiate head coaching victory on October 24, 2009 when the Sycamores downed Western Illinois by the score of 17-14 in the annual Homecoming contest in front of over 6,000 fans.
In addition to success on the field, Minter has continued to stress a concentration in the classroom for his student-athletes and the payoff came this past season in the form of senior Daniel Millington being named an ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Second Team member by the College Sports Information Directors of America. In the MVFC, Millington was a second team all-academic selection while Gabe Mullane joined him on the second team and Alex Sewall was an honorable mention pick.
On the playing field, Aaron Archie was named an All-MVFC Second Team member while Donye McCleskey and Rod Hardy were honorable mention selections. Additionally, Archie was named a MVFC All-Newcomer selection.
Aaron Archie was second in the league in tackles per game with an average of 10.6 stops per contest. Archie was one of three Sycamores to rank in the Valley's top 10 as Sewall's 8.4 tackles per game average was sixth while Donye McCleskey's 8.3 mark was seventh. Additionally, Archie's tackle average finished 12th in the nation.
Minter came to Indiana State from Cincinnati, where he spent the past two seasons as a graduate assistant coach, working with the defensive staff and specifically assisting with the coaching of the linebackers. His time with the Bearcats was during a very successful time for their program as the team won the Big East Conference in 2008 with an 11-3 record and advanced to a BCS Bowl for the first time in school history. Cincinnati earned a berth into the 2009 Orange Bowl where they matched up with Virginia Tech, the champions of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Working for head coach Brian Kelly, the Bearcat defense ranked first in the nation in takeaways during the 2007 campaign.
A 2005 graduate of the College of Mount St. Joseph, Minter served as a
football intern at Notre Dame in 2006. He helped a defensive unit that keyed the
Irish to a 10-3 record.
A four-year football letterwinner, Minter helped Mount St. Joseph compile a
30-10 record, marking the best four-year mark in school history, as the Lions
won consecutive Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference crowns in 2004 and
2005. Minter helped the Lions to back-to-back NCAA Division
III playoff appearances in his junior and senior seasons. In 2004, Mount St.
Joseph posted a perfect 10-0 mark in the regular season andost to eventual
national champion Mount Union in the first round the following year.
A native of Yorktown, Ind., Minter graduated from Yorktown High School. He is
the son of former Cincinnati head football coach and current Indiana State linebackers coach Rick Minter and is married to the former Rachelle
Wittich. The couple resides in Terre Haute.
