After graduating from Ball State, he started his coaching career at Goshen High School in Indiana as an assistant.
He left The Citadel after two years to join the staff of new head coach Mike Price at Washington State University in Pullman.
After Price left Washington State for the University of Alabama at the end of the 2002 season, Doba was named head coach, and took office immediately following the Rose Bowl.
[4][5] In his first season as head coach in 2003, Doba led the Cougars to a 10–3 record, with a Holiday Bowl win over Texas and a #9 final ranking.
Doba and his late wife, Judy, were married for over forty-three years and had three children, a son and two daughters.
He left Pullman and returned to the Midwest to be closer to his children and grandchildren, and resides in southwestern Michigan at Birch Lake, near Vandalia.