Lou Holtz, renowned college football coach turned ESPN analyst, dies at 89

Lou Holtz, the only coach to lead six different schools to bowl games and a figure who went on to be one of the faces of ESPN’s college football coverage from 2005 to 2014, has died. He was 89.

Holtz’s family confirmed his death on Wednesday.

From the family of Lou Holtz pic.twitter.com/aYWiXYVnLq

— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) March 4, 2026

Holtz was born in Follansbee, West Virginia, on January 6, 1937. He started his coaching career in 1960 as a graduate assistant at Iowa, then received his first head coaching job at William & Mary in 1969. He would go on to coach for almost four decades, becoming the only coach to lead four different programs to season-ending rankings inside the Top 20, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. But Holtz also made a massive impact on the sport in his decade-plus as an ESPN analyst, especially in his appearances with Mark May and Rece Davis on College Football Final and other shows.

As an assistant coach, Holtz worked at Iowa, William & Mary, Connecticut, South Carolina, and Ohio State, helping the Buckeyes to a consensus national title in 1968. He then took that head coaching job at William & Mary, winning a Southern Conference title with the Tribe in 1970. From there, Holtz went to North Carolina State in 1972, winning an ACC title in 1973 and posting a 33–12–3 record over four years.

1976 saw Holtz leave the college ranks to take over the NFL’s New York Jets, but that stint didn’t last long. He would resign that December with the team at 3-10, famously saying, “God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach pro football” around that exit. And decades later, Holtz still had some regrets about his time in the pros, telling a Raleigh audience for his 2006 book tour that he wished he’d stayed with the Wolfpack instead of taking the Jets’ job. He said, “I really didn’t want to leave NC State. Does it bother me to this day? Yes. …The lesson is, don’t go do anything unless you are totally committed to seeing it through. When I went to the Jets, I had no plan, no sense of urgency, no commitment to seeing it through.”

Holtz would quickly return to the college game in a prominent way. He took over as the head coach at Arkansas in 1977, and quickly led the Razorbacks to a surprising Orange Bowl victory over former coach Barry Switzer and favored Oklahoma that season, which led to them being picked as co-national champions by the Rothman (FACT) mathematical ranking. He would go 60–21–2 across seven years at Arkansas, but was fired in 1983 amidst debate over his TV ads endorsing conservative senator Jesse Helms. Holtz’s exit was painted as a resignation under pressure at the time, but athletic director Frank Broyles admitted it was a firing in testimony in a 2004 case, saying, “I felt like he was losing the fan base with things he said and did.”

Holtz immediately landed at Minnesota and would coach the Golden Gophers for two seasons, taking them from a 1-10 mark in 1983 to 4-7 and 6-5 campaigns. He left for Notre Dame ahead of the 1985 Independence Bowl, with his Minnesota contract reportedly containing an out only for that job. And that move led to Holtz’s greatest prominence as a coach.

From 1986-1996, Holtz posted a 100–30–2 record with the Irish. He would lead them to a 12-0 mark and a consensus national title in 1988, a season that included the famed “Catholics vs. Convicts” game against Miami, which ESPN later made into a 30 for 30. Holtz’s Notre Dame teams also posted one-loss seasons in 1989 and 1993 that had them in national championship debates, and he implemented other notable changes at the school, including removing names from the back of jerseys. 

After retiring following an 8-3 1996 season, Holtz pivoted to TV as a college football analyst for CBS Sports. But he jumped back into the coaching ranks in 1999 with South Carolina, and despite going 0-11 his first year, gained high praise for a turnaround to 8-4 in 2000. He would go 33-37 with the Gamecocks overall, retiring after a 6-5 2004 campaign and heading to ESPN.

At ESPN, Holtz would make a quick impact, especially from his coach’s perspective, and in his debates with May. Those often became heated and took a lot of criticism (including for some particular blunders by Holtz, such as “Hitler was a great leader too”), but they were a fixture of the network’s college football coverage for just over a decade and helped personify some of the network’s shift towards debate. Holtz left ESPN “by mutual agreement” in April 2015, May shifted to other assignments before his own ESPN tenure ended in 2017, and Davis was promoted to host College GameDay. However, while Holtz and May would team up again for an online show in 2018, they drew much less attention without ESPN’s platform.

Holtz’s career often involved crossovers with politics, from the Helms controversy at Arkansas to his hosting of a South Carolina fundraiser for former vice president Dan Quayle during Quayle’s bid for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. He publicly mulled running for Congress in Florida in 2009, but ultimately didn’t enter the race. And he drew even more political attention after leaving ESPN, endorsing Donald Trump for president in both 2016 and 2020 and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump in 2020. He also sued The Daily Beast for its coverage of his 2016 remarks at the Republican National Convention, and the outlet eventually reached a 2018 settlement that included an apology. In recent years, Holtz also hosted a The Lou Holtz Show podcast produced by the America First Policy Institute think tank, with which he was involved.

Throughout his coaching and punditry careers, Holtz took plenty of flak. His departures from some of his jobs drew scrutiny, as did NCAA investigations into him, especially at Minnesota and Notre Dame. And his on-air appearances at ESPN were often a focus for critics of how the network’s programming strategy was shifting towards debate, a trend that continued after his exit. But Holtz brought significant success to a wide range of schools and helped many people tune in to non-game content on ESPN. He made a massive mark on college football as both a coach and an analyst.