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Report: Nebraska Football Hires Former Houston, West Virginia Coach Dana Holgorsen to Offensive Staff

Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule said he would be bringing in extra eyes to evaluate the team. A new report indicates one of those sets of eyes is in the form of former Houston and West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen.

Kaleb Henry

Dec 28, 2018; Orlando, FL, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Dana Holgorson enters the stadium before the game in the 2018 Camping World Bowl against the Syracuse Orange at Camping World Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images
Dec 28, 2018; Orlando, FL, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Dana Holgorson enters the stadium before the game in the 2018 Camping World Bowl against the Syracuse Orange at Camping World Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images / Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images
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The Nebraska football is getting an experienced addition.

According to a report from ESPN's Pete Thamel, Nebraska is adding former Houston and West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorson to the offensive staff. Thamel says Holgorson will "work with the offensive staff in a role that will evolve as the season goes on."

Holgorsen has coached the offensive side of the ball for his entire career. He worked with quarterbacks and wide receivers at Valdosta State, Mississippi College, and Wingate in the 1990s before getting a job at Texas Tech. With the Red Raiders, he worked with the inside receivers from 2000-04 and then as the offensive coordinator until 2007.

The offensive-minded coach was the OC and QB coach at Houston and Oklahoma State before getting the nod as a head coach at West Virginia.

Holgorson had worked with successful college quarterbacks like Case Keenum and Geno Smith. He's also mentored offensive coaches Kliff Kingsbury and Jason Phillips.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said Monday he would be bringing in "a fresh set of eyes" to look at the entire operation in Lincoln.

"I’m going to have some people I trust to look at us both on offense and defense and look at what we’re doing and then go from there," Rhule said.

Rhule added that asking for opinions from the outside is nothing new for him.

"Bringing people here, maybe that’s not something I would normally do," Rhule said. "We have some people that we hire as consultants that do advanced stuff for us each week. We’ll talk to them, Zoom-wise. I think coming into the building this week is good."

Although Rhule said "this week" in his answer, the report indicates Holgorsen will be around at least for this final month of the regular season. The 5-4 Huskers are off this week before closing at USC, home with USC, and at Iowa.

Sam McKewon of the Omaha World-Herald is reporting that Phil Snow is also in Lincoln as a consultant. Snow was Rhule's defensive coordinator at Temple, Baylor, and in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers.

Snow has been a senior defensive analyst with the Chicago Bears since 2023.

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Kaleb Henry
KALEB HENRY

Kaleb Henry is an award-winning sports reporter, covering collegiate athletics since 2014 via radio, podcasting, and digital journalism. His experience with Big Ten Conference teams goes back more than a decade, including time covering programs such as the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oregon Ducks, and USC Trojans. He has contributed to Sports Illustrated since 2021. Kaleb has won multiple awards for his sports coverage from the Nebraska Broadcasters Association and Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association. Prior to working in sports journalism, Kaleb was a Division I athlete on the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Track and Field team where he discussed NCAA legislation as SIUE's representative to the Ohio Valley Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. 

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