Northwestern football staffer expected to leave for NFL job

Northwestern director of player personnel Jonny Kovach is expected to take a job with the Houston Texans, sources tell On3.

Kovach has worked at Northwestern since 2017, including as the team’s director of player personnel since 2019.

Kovach previously worked at Boston College.

Northwestern, which parted ways with head coach Pat Fitzgerald July 10, named defensive coordinator David Braun its interim head coach for this season July 14.

The Texans, meanwhile, are entering their first season with DeMeco Ryans as their head coach. Ryans, a former Alabama and NFL star linebacker, was hired by the Texans after two seasons as the defensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers.

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.