Nebraska Football: Former Husker assistant reportedly taking Kearney head coach job
The Nebraska football team isn’t the only state program that has been looking for a new head coach this winter. Nebraska-Kearney just lost its head coach, a man in Josh Lynn who had turned the Lopers program around after a couple of years of struggles. In his place, it appears the NCAA Division II school is going to try and tap into some big-time head coaching experience to keep things going.
Kearney is rumored to be set to hire former Nebraska football assistant Ryan Held. Should he be offered and accept the job, it would mark the next step in a whirlwind couple of years.
Kaleb Henry, the Sports Director for Lincoln radio station KLIN reported on Twitter that Held was in Kearney to meet with the Lopers athletic director Marc Bauer. It’s a safe bet that such a meeting was the final step in the two sides arriving at a head coaching deal.
Kearney is apparently looking to move fast after losing Lynn to West Texas A&M. When he first took over the Lopers’ job, the football team was coming off a one-win season. After going 3-8 and 5-6 in his first two seasons, Lynn posted four straight winning seasons, including 10 victories last season and an 8-3 record this year.
I’m hearing former #Huskers player and assistant coach Ryan Held has a good chance to be the next head coach at UNK. An announcement could come as soon as this week.
— Kaleb Henry (@iKalebHenry) December 18, 2022
Meanwhile, Held was the running backs coach for the Nebraska football team for the first four years of the Scott Frost era but was fired alongside most of the rest of the offensive assistants in 2021 with three games to go in the season.
This season he started out as the offensive coordinator at North Alabama and was eventually promoted to interim head coach when longtime head coach Chris Willis was fired after a 1-7 start to the season.
Outside of a season-ending 59-0 loss to Memphis, North Alabama did seem to be playing better, but Held wasn’t retained. Now it appears the former Nebraska football coach and player is going to be trying to continue the recent success of the Lopers.