Head Coach Todd Stepsis

[BCPanther]

Official.

Introductory Press Conference on tap.

Welcome Coach!

[Mill1634]

Hope he turns things around but hard to get too excited about him personally.

[Neighbor]

1999 Otterbein (assistant)
2000–2008 Capital (assistant)
2008–2013 Saginaw Valley State (DC)
2014–2018 Drake (DC)
2019–present Drake

[UNIpanther99]

The release says that in addtion to head coach, he served as Drake's offensive coordinator the past three seasons. Yet his background in coaching in on the defensive side. I know it's not unusual for assistant coaches to flip from one side of the ball to another, but this seems a little different. Anyone follow Drake closely enough to know what this is about?

[sevelev711]

Look all I know is that he got a win on that stupid red field in Eastern Washington so he's alright by me.

Drake fans seem pretty sad about the move, so that's a nice little double whammy, feel good story to add on top of it.

[BCPanther]

He absolutely deserves support and a chance to get it done.

That said, this doesn't excite anybody, isn't going to get donors running to their checkbooks and the optics of taking someone from Drake again aren't great.

I don't know how you look at 29-31 in what's basically D3 and go 'THAT'S OUR GUY'. If this was the route you were taking, go get Chris Winter.

[FOTY]

I am not excited nor impressed by this hire. That said, I wasn't excited about Dr. Franklin either and until today she's done nothing but impress me. Here's hoping he can turn the ship and prove my initial impression wrong, again.

[UNIChippewa]

He absolutely deserves support and a chance to get it done.

That said, this doesn't excite anybody, isn't going to get donors running to their checkbooks and the optics of taking someone from Drake again aren't great.

I don't know how you look at 29-31 in what's basically D3 and go 'THAT'S OUR GUY'. If this was the route you were taking, go get Chris Winter.

Hmmm...was he even listed as one of the finalists in public reports?

I am decidedly whelmed. It's hard to think with our pedigree that we couldn't done better, but then again considering our recent mediocre history maybe this is where we are as a program?

[PantherAlum09]

I think we are in for a reality check as to who wants these head coaching gigs at the FCS level. This is a supremely difficult job in today's NCAA, and unless you have boatloads of cash, I just don't know how much interest a lot of these coaches are going to have. There's a reason Clanton and JJ turned down interviews. I'm sure Chinander and Drinkall were looking for more money than what we could really do. It's just the nature of this job now.

Let's support Coach Stepsis and hope he's gone in a couple years because of his unprecedented success!

[run&blade]

Give him a chance. After Four years if it’s a failure you get rid of him and the AD because she was the fourth option for AD and she hires her buddy as coach. Just looks too easy and cheesy.

it’s the beginning of finding the right guy to be head coach. We will know in 3-4 years.

[UNIpanther99]

I think we can all agree that success for UNI football should be defined as winning conference championships and making runs in the playoffs on a regular basis.

As long as he's working toward that, he should have our support until he proves incapable of getting the program back to that level.

[pnthr53]

Doesn't look like I need to renew my season tickets. AD/Football hires both from Drake???? Ugh......am I missing something?

[nadf.]

This is about the type of hire I initially expected. Some of the names that came up on this board surprised me and got my hopes up, but in hindsight it's hard to believe that many of them would have taken the job if offered.

Underwhelmed but hoping for the best. To me it's not just that the record at Drake was not great - he inherited a program that went 7-4 three years in a row. But his last two years at Drake were solid. We just need somebody who will be open minded and willing to make the most of the current landscape in the sport.

[06panther10]

Have to support him and see where this goes. There are good coaches in many places you would not expect. Its all about leadership, salesmanship, and drive in this business now and he may very well be the perfect guy for the job.

Our program has been a progressively worse and worse dumpster fire for the last 10 years, and its going to take much more than a head coach to ultimately fix this. Hopefully this is the 1st step in a new direction, and he's going to require proper support and funding to take this program back where it deserves to be.

[UNIAlum95]

Yeah I'm with a few of the other comments on here. I think the part that feels icky is the Drake connection. If the hire was some random D3 coach or coordinator without any name recognition, it wouldn't feel as bad. This feels like Megan just went with a connection she knew so that doesn't feel great. I'm guessing that the other names thrown around probably wanted more than we could or would pay. I'll just have to hope that we didn't just go cheap on the deal.

That said I am happy it isn't a "UNI guy" and we can really measure outside the system now. He gets my full support and with my expectations now at a 0.500 level, the bar isn't very f'ing high.