Nebraska Football: Erik Chinander lands job with Boise State

As Matt Rhule keeps adding to his staff, Nebraska football fans are likely wondering where some of the former Husker coaches are ending up. When it comes to Erik Chinander, that question has now been answered.

It was announced earlier this week that the former Nebraska football defensive coordinator had scored a position on the Boise State Broncos. However, it turns out that former UCF and NU defensive coordinator won’t immediately take the same position with the Mountain West squad.

Bruce Feldman announced on Twitter that Chinander will be helming Boise State’s defensive line. He’ll also still have some coordinator duties as he’ll be the “run game coordinator.”

It’s not as though the coach doesn’t have some experience there, he was a defensive line coach in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles. That’s likely one of the reasons that Scott Frost thought he’d work out better with the Nebraska football team.

Despite not having been in coaching all that long, Chinander already has quite a few stops on his resume. He started coaching the offensive and defensive line with Ellsworth Community College in 2003.

From 2004 to 2009 the former Nebraska football defensive coordinator coached tight ends and was the recruiting coordinator for Northern Iowa. He made the jump to FBS coaching staff when he became a GA at Oregon from 2010 to 2012 and then took over coaching the defensive line for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013.

In 2014, he returned to Oregon and coached the outside linebackers for two years before following Scott Frost to UCF where he was named the defensive coordinator. He then followed Frost again to Nebraska but was fired about halfway through the season as part of a purge that Mickey Joseph carried out as he tried to turn the Cornhuskers’ season around.

Former Nebraska Football DC Gets New Start

Now Chinander finds himself in a situation where he could jumpstart his coaching career with the Broncos. Boise State had its usual successful season, finishing 10-4, including a bowl game win over North Texas.

With Ryan Held recently joining UNK and now Chinander getting his new job, it will be interesting to see where some of the other former Nebraska football coaches end up.