Who is Mike Cavanaugh? All we know about Oregon State’s potential new offensive line coach

On Saturday, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that Mike Cavanaugh is set to become the next offense line coach for the Oregon State Beavers. He is set to replace Kyle DeVan, who left the program on Friday to go to the Chicago Bears.

"Sources: Oregon State is expected to hire veteran offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh as the school’s new offensive line coach. He’s an OLine analyst at Oregon and has worked at Arizona State, Nebraska, Syracuse, and spent a decade at Oregon State in a prior stint."

But, who is Mike Cavanaugh?

Who is Mike Cavanaugh?

Mike Cavanaugh played college football for New Haven in the early 1980s and made his first step into coaching with Albany as their graduate assistant. He would then work with numerous schools in the Northeast before making a massive move for his first coaching role on a team.

From 1999 to 2004, Cavanaugh was the offensive line coach with the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. During this period, Hawaii had one of the strongest offenses in the country. They were rewarded for this with an almost yearly Bowl game appearance, which was always the Aloha/Hawaii Bowl (The Rainbow Warriors are normally given this Bowl game when they are eligible for logistics reasons).

Once his time in Hawaii ended, Cavanaugh spent 10 years with the Oregon State Beavers, the program he is heading back to in 2025. As with his time in Hawaii, he was also able to help the Beavers break numerous offensive records under head coach Mike Riley.

After his memorable time with the Beavers ended, Cavanaugh worked with Nebraska, Syracuse and later Arizona State. His most recent job was with the Oregon Ducks as an offensive analyst.

In total, Cavanaugh brings more than 30 years of experience to the Beavers and a strong track record of being able to make offensive lines work well and create strong players, some of whom have gone on to play in the NFL.

Away from football, Cavanaugh and his wife, Laurie, have two sons.

What is facing Mike Cavanaugh at Oregon State?

Mike Cavanaugh is going to be walking into the Oregon State program that is familiar to him, having worked with the program for 10 years, and then more time with their conference rivals.

However, the environment that Oregon State has surrounded itself in is completely different from what Cavanaugh dealt with in the past and is rapidly changing. The Beavers are one of two teams left in the Pac-12 this season and will only need to defeat Washington State to call themselves conference championships. But, this will not help them in the long term, as many players have transferred out and the schedule is mostly against Mountain West teams.

Cavanaugh will need to bring in players for the 2026 season. This is when the "new" Pac-12 is formed, and the Beavers will immediately want to become the dominant program in what is likely to be seen as a mix between the Power 4 conference and a Group of 5.