Latest in a series of "Where Are They Now?" features on members of the Colgate Athletics family. Click Here for previous profiles.
 
HAMILTON – The Colgate connection to Super Bowl 50 knows a good run of championship football when he sees it.
 
James Cregg was Colgate's defensive line coach during the Raiders' memorable 2003 sprint to the NCAA title game, and this year he helped the Denver Broncos return to Super Bowl glory.
 
Cregg coached Denver's offensive line in his second season with the Broncos, who captured the AFC's No. 1 seed and then blitzed through the playoffs. Denver defeated Pittsburgh and New England to start the postseason, and then took down Carolina in the Super Bowl by a 24-10 count.
 
"It was like being back at Colgate," Cregg said. "We had a belief about each other, no matter what happened, and the confidence grew throughout the year – especially toward the end. In the playoffs, they weren't going to lose."
 
Cregg still enjoys reminiscing about the 2003 run he was part of at Colgate, when head coach Dick Biddle and the Raiders won their first 15 games to advance to the NCAA Division I-AA (now FCS) title game.
 
"I really enjoyed the coaching staff we had," Cregg said. "Coach Biddle brought me in and we had a really close group and a tremendous coaching staff. A lot of those coaches have gone on to do some really great things.
 
"We hung out together and the players could feel that. When the coaches are tight-knit, the players are going to be tight-knit. That's what I remember."
 
Keeping in Touch
Colgate remains the only Patriot League team to play for a football championship. This year's Raider squad had the second-best postseason run in program history – after 2003 – winning twice in the playoffs and advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals.
 
The 2003 and 2015 Colgate teams are the only Patriot League squads to win two games in the same playoff run and advance as far as the quarterfinals.
 
"I was keeping in touch with Dan Hunt and Ryan Knowles and it was remarkable," said Cregg, who coached alongside Hunt and Chris Young at Colgate, and coached with Knowles at Idaho. "It was a flashback for me to watch them gain confidence throughout the year. They played their best at the end of the year when they needed to and it was great to see their run."
 
Cregg played on the offensive line at Colorado State, but he coached the defensive line while at Colgate and then in his next job at Idaho. That flexibility stemmed from a piece of advice Cregg received from Sonny Lubick, his head coach at Colorado State.
 
"Coach Lubick asked me to help out coaching after my eligibility was done, and a position came open on defense," Cregg said. "Sonny said that if I wanted to be a coach, I needed to learn the defensive side of the football. So that's what I did."
 
Cregg earned an assistant position with the Oakland Raiders coaching the offensive line in 2007, completing his circular path from offense to defense and back to offense.
 
Just as Coach Lubick predicted.
 
"That was the best piece of advice I've ever gotten," Cregg said. "Sonny Lubick said I needed to go learn defense and, sure enough, it was a great experience."
 
Rode the Wave
Cregg went from Oakland in the NFL back to the collegiate ranks at Tennessee and USC before catching on with the Broncos to start 2014. Despite a head coaching change from John Fox to Gary Kubiak, Cregg was retained by Kubiak for the 2015 season and rode the wave all the way to the Lombardi Trophy.
 
"It was remarkable," Cregg said. "I was very fortunate to be kept on by Coach Kubiak and it worked out really well. I couldn't work with a better group of people, coaches and players. They all did a great job bonding together.
 
"The players were determined and it was a mindset all year long. Their whole mindset was winning the world championship. That was preached day-in and day-out, and we fed off each other."
 
Cregg lives in the Denver area with his wife, Dayna, and their daughter, McKenzie.
 
A native of Norco, Calif., near Los Angeles, Cregg and his family adapted well to the Colgate community during their four years here, and he remembers it fondly.
 
"It's a cool place," he said. "It's a tight-knit community and everybody knew who you were. You went into a restaurant and people knew who you were and I sort of like that. I like talking to people and having that small-town atmosphere.
 
"And to do what we did there was awesome. Those guys were special players and a lot of them still keep in touch. It was a pretty neat deal going on that run with those guys and doing what we did."