After graduating from Colorado, Gibbs served as a graduate assistant at the University of Oklahoma and at Colorado. In 1995, he became the secondary coach at the University of Kansas under head coach Glen Mason. When Mason was appointed head coach at the University of Minnesota in 1997, Gibbs was hired as the Golden Gophers' defensive coordinator, the youngest coordinator in Division I-A at that time. Gibbs improved a Minnesota defense that had ranked last in the Big Ten Conference in 1996 to one that was ranked eighth in the nation in pass and scoring defense by 1999.
