Watch Oregon QB coach Koa Ka’ai talk his journey back to Oregon
Oregon quarterbacks coach Koa Ka’ai talks about his journey back to coaching at Oregon after playing for the school a decade ago.
Oregon quarterbacks coach Koa Ka’ai uses an ice cream preference question to gauge a recruit’s conviction.Ka’ai, a former Ducks player, has coached multiple positions on both offense and defense.Head coach Dan Lanning promoted Ka’ai after he effectively shared quarterback coaching duties last season.
Do you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream?
Yes, that’s a question that might get asked around Eugene during orientation week at the University of Oregon. But it’s also asked by Ducks quarterbacks coach Koa Ka’ai to potential recruits.
“A kid pauses, I don’t really want that kid,” Ka’ai said during an April 7 press conference that has since gone viral. “Because you need to have some type of conviction, right, wrong or indifferent. So whether you like chocolate or you like vanilla, I don’t really care. But if you sit there and say, ‘Ah, coach, I don’t know, is it melted? What’s the brand? So on and so forth. Like, what is this kid gonna do on third down in front of 110,000? He’s gonna think about it more than he should. He’s not going to have conviction.”
Ka’ai has had a winding road since wrapping up his own Ducks playing career in 2015. The Hawaii native arrived in Eugene as a defensive end, moved to tight end and had just two receptions for 18 yards over his career to go along with four total tackles and a forced fumble when he played defense.
He moved back home to Hawaii after college and said he “fell into coaching” from there, working at several high schools before interviewing with Todd Graham at the University of Hawaii in 2020 as a defensive graduate assistant.
The following year, Ka’ai moved to the offensive line under current Oregon assistant A’lique Terry under Graham at Hawaii.
In 2022, Ka’ai returned to Oregon and interviewed with coach Dan Lanning for a to-be-determined analyst role. Ka’ai took the job and worked with running backs, then receivers, then finally moved to quarterbacks under offensive coordinator Will Stein in 2024.
Going on year 3 coaching QBs and having just been promoted to lead quarterbacks coach at his alma mater, it’s the longest position Ka’ai has held since graduating.
“It’s very different than most coaches’ process and their journey,” Ka’ai said. “But I think being able to have worked with all those different position groups and having been lucky enough to spend some time on defense gives me a unique perspective on the game, and it’s more of like a 30,000-foot view, if you will. I’m appreciative of it.”
Lanning said Ka’ai’s relationship with all of the quarterbacks and his work through four years at Oregon speaks for itself. Going into his fifth season at Oregon, Lanning has seen the work Ka’ai has put in and knows what he’s going to get in the young assistant.
That isn’t lost on Ka’ai, who knows he holds one of the most prestigious assistant positions in the country.
“I’m blessed that he could have hired anybody for this job, like it’s the quarterback job at Oregon,” Ka’ai said. “I’m not naive enough to think that he couldn’t have gone out and hired a big name. But I’m appreciative that he trusted in me, and he has that same trust and that same mindset of giving opportunities to people throughout this whole organization.”
It also helps that Ka’ai has basically been doing the job for over a year now. Lanning revealed that Ka’ai was basically the quarterbacks coach a year ago, splitting duties with OC and playcaller Stein. While the latter was working on game prep and big-picture offensive duties, Ka’ai would run meetings or run parts of practice.
So in a sense, Ka’ai’s promotion is mostly just a title change.
“Obviously, you’re on the road recruiting now. But in regards to the day-to-day, a lot of that’s similar,” Ka’ai said. “Me and Will, we would just play off each other last season. Now a lot of it’s more on me now.”
As for coaching the position, Ka’ai has repeated most of the same traits and skillsets that Kenny Dillingham, Stein and Lanning have all echoed since Lanning’s arrival in Eugene: Smart, good decision-making, along with arm talent to put those brains to use.
Ka’ai’s statement about asking recruits which type of ice cream they prefer might have been splashy for social media and pundits questioning the validity of the question. But his point was about how a quarterback processes a problem.
Ka’ai said his job is to be the intermediary between new offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer and whoever starts at quarterback for Oregon. He wants to bring Mehringer’s vision of the offense to returning starter Dante Moore as quickly and seamlessly as possible, calling himself a “conduit” between the two.
He said his position is “a very cognitive” one.
“I would argue 80% of what they do is cognitive and cerebral. So it’s like, how do I streamline their thinking? How do I streamline their thought process?” Ka’ai said. “And how do I make that and help that vision come to life? So when you think about coaching the quarterback, yes, the fundamental aspect I’ve had to learn over the years. But the more football you understand, the more football you learn. A lot of it is training these guys’ minds, how to think and process. The more efficient you can make that, the better player they usually are.”
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football and women’s basketball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com.