Lou Holtz

Legendary football coach Lou Holtz joined ESPN as a studio and game analyst in 2004, after his second retirement as a coach. He is an analyst on ESPN’s Saturday college football pregame, halftime and postgame studio coverage and College Football Final with host Rece Davis and fellow analyst Mark May, during which Holtz does a regular feature, “Dr. Lou.” The trio also calls select ESPN and ESPN2 weekday games. In addition, Holtz is a regular contributor to SportsCenter. Before coming to ESPN, Holtz served for as a commentator for CBS Sports for two seasons. Holtz began his coaching career in 1960 as a graduate assistant at Iowa. He then moved on to assistant coaching positions at William & Mary, Connecticut, South Carolina and Ohio State. At Ohio State he coached for Woody Hayes in 1968, when they won the national championship. In 1969, he would return to William & Mary as head coach. In 1972, Holtz became the head coach for the University of North Carolina. After four seasons with North Carolina, Holtz was hired as the head coach of the NFL’s New York Jets. After a year, though, Holtz returned to college football, where he succeeded Frank Broyles as the head coach at Arkansas. Next, after seven seasons with Arkansas, he headed to the University of Minnesota, where he would coach for two seasons. In 1986, Holtz became the head coach at Notre Dame. In his decade with the Fighting Irish, he led Notre Dame to an undefeated season and a national championship in 1988. In 1996, after 27 years of coaching, Holtz retired. But after two seasons as a CBS commentator, he returned to coach for six more seasons, this time at South Carolina. Holtz retired with a career record of 249-132-7, which ranks him sixth all-time in victories. He has received such honors as Coach of the Year and has won national championships. Holtz has taken six schools to bowl games within two years of arriving as coach, including the only bowl game in William & Mary history. He has taken teams to 22 post-season bowl games in his career. Holtz is the only coach to lead four schools to top-20 finishes. He has written three New York Times best-sellers, including The Fighting Spirit, which tells the story of Notre Dame’s 1988 championship season. Holtz resides in Orlando, Fla. He earned a Bachelor of Science in history from Kent State in 1959, and a Master’s degree in arts and education from Iowa in 1961.