Northwestern set to add veteran head coach to staff

Northwestern is adding a veteran head coach to help new interim head coach David Braun.

The Wildcats are hiring Skip Holtz as special assistant to the head coach, a source tells On3.

Holtz, the son of legendary coach Lou Holtz, has been a college head coach at Louisiana Tech, USF, ECU and UConn. He’s most recently won back-to-back USFL championships as the head coach of the Birmingham Stallions and posted a 17-3 overall record these last two seasons in the USFL.

Holtz, who was an offensive coordinator under his father at Notre Dame and South Carolina, has 152 career wins as a college head coach, including a 64-50 mark as Louisiana Tech’s head coach from 2013 to ’21.

At Northwestern, Holtz will assist Braun, who was tabbed as Northwestern’s interim head coach for the 2023 season July 14 following the Wildcats’ firing of Pat Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was fired July 10 amid allegations of hazing within the Northwestern program.

Braun had originally been hired by the Wildcats in January as the team’s new defensive coordinator, which came after four seasons as the defensive coordinator at FCS power North Dakota State.

Northwestern, which finished last year 1-11, opens its season against Rutgers Sept. 3.

“I never could have imagined nor did I desire to become a head coach under these types of circumstances,” Braun said at Big Ten Media Days. “That said, I’m honored to lead this group moving forward. … I dreamt of playing in the Big Ten. That never became a reality. But an opportunity to work in the Big Ten, coach in the Big Ten and coach and mentor these young men is something that I don’t take lightly.”

To keep up with the latest coach transactions, check out our coaching transaction tracker.

The 2022-23 coaching cycle

For the seventh time in the last eight coaching cycles, there were more than 20 head coaching changes at the FBS level.

The only exception during this stretch that dates back to the 2015-16 coaching cycle was following the COVID season in 2020, when there were 18 FBS head coaching changes.

During the 2022-23 cycle, there were 24 head coaching changes. That includes 11 at the Power Five level, headlined by hires such as Deion Sanders at Colorado, Matt Rhule at Nebraska, Hugh Freeze at Auburn and Luke Fickell at Wisconsin.

Other Power Five head coaching changes came at places such at Arizona State, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Mississippi State, Purdue and Stanford.

It came after there were 30 head coaching changes during the 2021-22 coaching cycle, which included Lincoln Riley being hired at USC, Brian Kelly being tabbed as the new head coach at LSU and Marcus Freeman then being selected as his replacement for the Fighting Irish. 

There were also other moves like Billy Napier replacing Dan Mullen at Florida, Brent Venables being hired at Oklahoma following Riley’s departure, Mario Cristobal leaving Oregon for Miami and Dan Lanning being hired as Cristobal’s replacement at Oregon after helping Georgia win the national championship as the defensive coordinator of the Bulldogs’ dominant defense.

The only other recent coaching cycles with more than 24 head coaching changes were the 2018-19 cycle with 28 and the 2015-16 cycle with 29.