Ex-Nebraska football coach gets P5 head coaching gig

Former Nebraska football coach Trent Bray is getting his first shot at a Power 5 head coaching gig as he takes over the Oregon State Beavers.

The start of the coaching carousel has been nothing if not incredibly interesting. In part because things seem to be moving faster than they have in recent years. We probably have the transfer portal to thank for that to some extent.

Teams are wanting to make sure they have their head coaches in place as close to the portal opening as possible. There’s also the early signing period that takes place in the middle of December.

While Nebraska football fans are still sitting and waiting to see if Tony White is headed elsewhere, a former Husker assistant was able to stay home and get a promotion at the same time.

Just days after Michigan State hired Oregon State head Jonathan Smith to lead the Spartans, the Beavers announced they’ve promoted defensive coordinator Trent Bray.

The promotion is another step in what has been an interesting career path for a relatively young coach. He got his first full time coaching job with California Redwoods as their linebackers coach.

He then coached the same position with Arizona State for two seasons before moving to Oregon State for the first time. There, he coached linebackers under former Nebraska football head coach Mike Riley for three years before following Riley to Lincoln.

Ex-Nebraska football assistant gets the call

Technically, this won’t be the first time Bray has been the head coach of a Power 5 conference team. When Riley was fired, Bray was briefly the interim head coach of the Nebraska football program.

When the rest of the assistants were cleaned out after Scott Frost was hired, Bray went back to Corvallis, Oregon and went back to coaching linebackers from 2018 to 2021. Last year he was promoted to defensive coordinator.

This year, the ex-Nebraska football coach got himself another promotion in what is sure to be a turbulent time for the Beavers.