MD Daniels looks like a good fit for Mount Mercy football

If first impressions mean anything, Mount Mercy University has a winner.

“I am a great relationship builder,” MD Daniels said Friday, five days after officially kick-starting the Mustangs’ first football program.

It appears he is that and much more.

Building a football program from scratch can be a daunting task, especially in a time when smaller colleges are struggling with enrollment and athletics budgets are stretched thin.

In order to make it work, you have to have the right person in the head coaching chair, directing not only what happens on the field but, more importantly, tasks big and small off the field. And selling the program to prospective players, fans and donors.

If first impressions count, Daniels is the right choice.

“I will be the hardest worker on campus,” he said.

He’s already hard at work.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” he said, noting he and his wife, Chyna, moved into a house just outside of Cedar Rapids last weekend with their 1 1/12-year-old daughter, Riley. “Since I got on campus, I’ve been moving.”

He’s already recruiting — he was “evaluating quarterbacks” when we talked on the phone last week — and plans on spending time in high schools near and far. Mostly near.

“We’re going to build this thing with Iowans,” he said. “I’m really diving in the Iowa high schools.

“I want to turn Eastern Iowa into Mustang Country.”

He already has a defensive coordinator — Venique Benton from MidAmerica Nazarene — and a recruiting coordinator in Raul Lozano, who Daniels worked with at Iowa Wesleyan.

“He knows Iowa quite a bit,” Daniels said of Lozano.

Benton has been coaching in the Heart of America Conference for five years, most recently as special teams coordinator at safeties coach at MidAmerica.

“He knows every offense that we’re going to see,” Daniels said.

A Houston native, the 35-year-old Daniels played football at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. He has coached at McMurry, Iowa Wesleyan and Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn. He played defensive back, running back and wide receiver at McMurry and has coached on both sides of the ball.

He knows offense. He knows defense. He’ll be offensive coordinator at Mount Mercy as well as head coach.

“I’m a football guy,” he said.

Spend 10 minutes with Daniels and that is obvious.

He’s a disciple of Hal Mumme, a former McMurry coach known as one of the founders of the “Air Raid” offense.

“I’m an ‘Air Raid’ guy ... but we’ll be what I call ‘smash mouth spread,’” Daniels said. “We’re still going to throw the ball quite a bit.”

That’s all well and good, but building a program from the ground up is more than Xs and Os. Daniels acknowledged that and said his time at Iowa Wesleyan taught him valuable lessons.

He was defensive coordinator for the Tigers in 2019 and became head coach at the end of the ’20-21 season, coaching one full season before Iowa Wesleyan shut its doors.

“Iowa Wesleyan was not in a good place” when he took over, he said. The Tigers needed players, equipment and better facilities. He was on track to do that when the college closed.

“All the things I did at Iowa Wesleyan helps me understand” what it’s going to take at Mount Mercy.

“The only process that takes time is the recruiting process,” he said.

Not just recruiting “anyone who can play,” but recruiting the right players and building with Iowa athletes.

“We want good character kids ... who are going to do things the right way,” Daniels said.

And, he said, he will be the players’ biggest fan when they join him on the hilltop. The Mustangs begin play in 2026.

“I’m not here without these kids,” he said, noting he will “recruit the parents just as hard as the kids.”

He will check in on his players often, not just about football but about schoolwork and mental health.

“I want to make sure they are OK,” he said.

That’s the “relationship builder” in Daniels and why, it appears, he’s the right man for this task.

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