I’m 49ers guru with a master’s degree and now I’m rivaling my brother for Super Bowl glory

When the San Francisco 49ers take the field at Lumen Field on Saturday, the stakes could not be higher.

A trip to the NFC Championship game is on the line, but for 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak, the game is also a high-stakes family reunion.

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Standing on the opposite sideline will be the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator, and Klay’s older brother, Klint Kubiak. It is a rare postseason meeting between siblings from one of the NFL’s fiercest rivalries.

Understanding the younger Kubiak’s journey requires stepping back in time. Klay’s path to the NFL was anything but traditional.

While many coaches spend their early 20s as low-level assistants, Klay pursued a different kind of expertise. He graduated with a degree in English from Colorado State and later earned his Master’s degree in English from TCU in 2013.

He put that degree to use immediately, spending several years as an English teacher at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston. During his time there, he balanced teaching literature with coaching the football team, eventually serving as head coach from 2018 to 2020.

Despite his family’s deep roots in coaching, Klay points to his time as an educator as the key influence that drew him into the profession.

“I’m the only member in my family not to go straight into sports,” Klay told the Strake Jesuit student newspaper back in 2018.

“I started out as a teacher. I got my masters degree in English right after college. When I got hired to Strake Jesuit, I started teaching, and I was coaching part-time as an assistant, and over the past five years I’ve grown to love it.

“I didn’t intend on doing it at first, but it happened, and I fell in love with it.

“Coaching is teaching. The best coaches I’ve been around have considered themselves good teachers and motivators. People see coaching, and think it’s all about the screaming and the adrenaline, especially in football.

“If you want to become a coach, be a student of the sport you play by studying it and think about what motivates the kind of players who play for you. Because if I’m the coach and I can’t motivate players and they don’t understand the game, I’m not doing my fundamental job as a coach.

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“I think going into education is a good way to get involved in coaching. There’s a lot of educators who become high school coaches from just spending so much time in that profession that it grows on them. It can lead them on into larger coaching, collegiate and professional levels. Education is a really good way to do it.”

The brothers meet for the third time this season, having split the regular-season series, but this matchup carries even more weight: a spot in the conference title game.

Big games are in the family’s blood.

The Kubiak brothers are the sons of Gary Kubiak, a four-time Super Bowl champion and while they share a legendary football pedigree, their styles in 2026 have distinct flavors.

Klay was promoted to offensive coordinator in January 2025, and while head coach Kyle Shanahan calls the plays, Klay has been credited with the growth of quarterback Brock Purdy and a passing attack that has ranked in the top five this year.

Meanwhile, Klint joined Seattle in 2025 and has helped lead a high-powered offense that, with Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, posted the NFL’s best record.

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The Seattle OC has already interviewed for multiple head coaching openings.

As the sun sets over Lumen Field Saturday evening, the two brothers will look each other in the eye and shake hands, knowing the ultimate prize is just two wins away.

For the Kubiak family, the game is a guaranteed win, one son will advance to the NFC Championship, but for Klay, it is the ultimate opportunity to prove that his unconventional path was the right one.

In a league often defined by football lifers, Klay Kubiak is proving that a master’s in literature might just be the secret weapon needed to read between the lines of a championship-caliber defense.

On Saturday night, the student of the game will look to finally out-teach his brother on the NFL’s biggest stage.

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