Record at time of hire: 35-10-5; Record at Nebraska: 101-20-2
Previous schools:
- Wyoming Cowboys: 1957-1961
We go to another head coach who spent time with the Wyoming Cowboys. Bob Devaney was there for five years and won the Skyline Conference Championship his final four seasons there. He was enjoying lots of success when the Nebraska Cornhuskers hired him.
However, Devaney went 6-1-2 in 1961 before he was hired away. That was his worst year with Wyoming since his first year, when he went 4-3-3. You could arguably his second year, when he went 8-3, was also worse. Either way, there was a regression from 1959 and 1960, even if his team did finish in the top 20 of the Coaches Poll in 1961.
Similar to Heupel, though, Devaney inherited a program that went undefeated the year before he got there. Led by former Tennessee football player Phil Dickens, Wyoming went 10-0 in 1956, ironically the same year Bowden Wyatt, a teammate of Dickens’ at UT who spent six years at Wyoming, went 10-0 in the regular season with the Vols and won the SEC title.
Anyway, Devaney was hired of the success he continued at a program he inherited despite never really reaching he previous coach’s success. It didn’t matter. He won two national titles at Nebraska and helped establish a powerhouse program.