Bio

Marvin Sanders enters his third season on the CMS football coaching staff in 2023, where he serves as the program's defensive coordinator and works with the defensive backs. 

In his first season with the Stags in 2021, Sanders helped the program to a 7-3 record and a 4-2 mark in the SCIAC. CMS allowed just 16.8 points per game, and yielded only 277.7 yards per game to its opponents, including a 27-0 shutout win over traditional league power Cal Lutheran. Defensive backs Ben Cooney and Michael Colangelo were All-SCIAC selections, and six members of the CMS defense in all were named all-league, including two linemen (Mason Hernandez, Tyson Jay-Saena), two linebackers (Dylan Porter, Stiles Satterlee) and two dfensive backs. 

In 2022, Cooney became the first Stag to ever earn first-team All-America honors from the American Football Coaches Association, after winning the SCIAC Defensive Player of the Year award. The Stags allowed just 9.2 ppg as a team, as well as only 211.9 yards (including 149.9 passing yards) per game, and did not allow a touchdown in five of their nine contests. CMS ranked seventh in the country in total defense and scoring defense, 18th in pass efficiency defense, and 22nd in passing yards allowed, while throwing only eight touchdown passes to go with 12 interceptions. 

Sanders brought extensive experience with him to Claremont, most recently as the defensive backs coach with the Dallas Renegades of the XFL from 2019-20, before the pandemic closed down operations for the league. Prior to joining the XFL, he had experience on the coaching staffs at 10 different colleges, representing every division. 

During his collegiate coaching career, which has included stints at Nebraska (twice), North Carolina and USC, Sanders has been nominated for the Frank Broyles Assistant Coach of the Year Award, and was twice a finalist for the Defensive Backs Coach of the Year. He has coached 25 defensive backs in his career who have gone on to play in the NFL. 

A former honorable mention All-Big Eight Conference selection as a safety at Nebraska, Sanders began his coaching career right in Lincoln as a defensive backs coach at Nebraska Wesleyan from 1992-93. He then spent two years at Minnesota-Morris and five years at Nebraska-Omaha, before joining his first FBS staff at New Mexico State in 2000. 

After two years at Colorado State, where he helped the Rams to a Mountain West title and two bowl appearances, Sanders returned to his alma mater to coach defensive backs in 2003 at Nebraska under head coach Frank Solich. That season, Nebraska led the nation and set a school record with 32 interceptions and had the nation's highest pass efficiency defense and the second-best scoring defense. 

Sanders parlayed that successful season into earning the defensive coordinator position at North Carolina, where he coached from 2004-06, hellping the Tar Heels improve from 2-10 in 2003 to 6-6 in 2004, improving by 60 spots nationally in total defense.

After a head coaching change at North Carolina, Sanders returned to Nebraska again under Head Coach Bo Pelini as the assistant head coach from 2008-10. In 2009, the Cornhuskers again led the nation in pass efficiency defense, totaling 18 interceptions and allowing only seven touchdown passes, before finishing third in the country in that category in 2010. 

After spending one season at USC under Head Coach Lane Kiffin in 2012, which he helped improve by 20 spots nationally in pass efficiency defense, Sanders stepped away from the college game to become the head coach at Loyola High School in Los Angeles from 2013-17, helping the program improve from a 3-7 record to 9-3 during his tenure.

He served a defensive internship with the Los Angeles Rams in the fall of 2017 before returning to the college game that December as the defensive coordinator at Coastal Carolina. He coached the Chanticleers for two years before leaving to join the Dallas Renegades under head coach Bob Stoops in 2019. 

As a member of the Nebraska football team from 1985-90, Sanders was part of a 1987 Sugar Bowl Championship team, and helped Nebraska to Fiesta Bowl appearances in 1988 and 1990, and an Orange Bowl appearance in 1989.

Sanders earned his degree from Nebraska in business administration in 1990.