DENVER – Colorado State University announced Monday it had hired Jay Norvell, the head football coach at Nevada, to be the Rams’ next football coach.
Norvell, 58, will be formally introduced as the new coach on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 at the Iris and Michael Smith Alumni Center. His hiring comes after former coach Steve Addazio was fired last Thursday.
Norvell led the Wolf Pack to an 8-4 record (5-3 in Mountain West Conference play) this season, capping the year with a 52-10 rout of CSU in Fort Collins. Nevada will play Western Michigan in the Quick Lane Bowl.
Nevada’s three conference losses – at Fresno State, at a ranked San Diego State team, and at home against Air Force – all came by two points. The Wolf Pack also fell to Kansas State 38-17 in the third game of the season.
Norvell went 33-26 during his time at Nevada after he was hired in 2017. He went 3-9 in his first season but posted winning records and went to bowl games in each of the past four seasons, including two second-place Mountain West finishes.
Before that, he served as an assistant at schools including Iowa State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, UCLA, Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona State. He also coached for six seasons in the NFL.
Norvell will be Colorado State’s first Black head coach.
“I am humbled, thankful, but most importantly excited to begin this process of building Colorado State into the championship contender we all know it can be,” Norvell said in a statement. “My family and I are ecstatic and cannot wait to get to Fort Collins to get started.”
Athletic Director Joe Parker said last week, after Addazio was fired following 16 games and won only four, that he wanted to find a coach who could help the team compete for conference championships.
“One name and resume stood above the rest from the very beginning – Jay Norvell,” Parker said in a statement Monday. “When you combine his wealth of coaching experience as an assistant at programs like Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as five years as a successful head coach in the Mountain West, the choice was clear.”
