With Mike Ekeler off to North Carolina, Mean Green head coach Seth Littrell has announced the hiring of Jeff Koonz as linebackers coach.
Koonz arrives from Cincinnati, where he served as co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach through last season.
In addition to Cincinnati, Koonz also owns Conference USA experience at Louisiana Tech, where he spent four seasons on staff.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Jeff to our staff,” Littrell said in a statement. “He is a young, energetic coach with a lot of quality experience at Cincinnati, around the Big 12, and in Conference USA as well from his time at Louisiana Tech. He is an excellent teacher and we look forward to immediately hitting the ground running with him this spring. Jeff comes very highly recommended from two coaches I have a great deal of respect for in Sonny Dykes and Gene Chizik.”
Koonz will be asked to help improve a defense that ranked tied for 93rd nationally in yards per play allowed and 96th in scoring defense a year ago, which, to be fair, each represented 20-plus spot improvements from the Mean Green’s 2015 finish.
