Legendary college football coach Lou Holtz has died at 89 years old, his family announced in a statement released by Notre Dame on Wednesday.
From the family of Lou Holtz pic.twitter.com/aYWiXYVnLq
— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) March 4, 2026
Holtz was an assistant coach for Ohio State in 1968, when the Buckeyes won the national championship. After one year with the Buckeyes, Holtz became the head coach at William & Mary, where he had previously been an assistant from 1961-63.
Holtz went on to become the head coach at NC State (1972-75), then became the head coach at Arkansas in 1977 after a one-year stint coaching the NFL’s New York Jets. Fired by Arkansas after the 1983 season, Holtz became the head coach at Minnesota, where he spent two years before becoming the head coach at Notre Dame, the job he is best known for.
Holtz went 100-30-2 across 11 seasons at Notre Dame, leading the Fighting Irish to the national championship with a 12-0 season in 1988.
After leaving Notre Dame in 1996 to become a commentator for CBS Sports, Holtz returned to coaching at South Carolina in 1999. He coached the Gamecocks for six seasons before retiring from coaching. Holtz went on to become a studio analyst for ESPN’s college football coverage, a role he held until 2015.
Holtz returned to Ohio State to serve as a guest coach for the Buckeyes’ 2017 spring game alongside Urban Meyer and Phil Knight. His grandson, Trey Holtz (who’s now the assistant quarterbacks coach for Brian Hartline at South Florida), spent three years on the Buckeyes’ staff from 2017-19.
In his later years, however, Holtz famously beefed with current Ohio State coach Ryan Day. After Holtz questioned Ohio State’s physicality before the Buckeyes’ 2023 road game at Notre Dame, Day famously exclaimed, “I’d like to know where Lou Holtz is right now!” during his postgame interview on NBC following Ohio State’s 17-14 win. Holtz later claimed before the Ohio State vs. Notre Dame national championship game in January 2025 that “if Notre Dame doesn’t win, it’s because we want to preserve Ryan Day’s job.”
Holtz, who went 249-132-7 across 33 total seasons as a college football head coach, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2019, ESPN ranked Holtz as the 23rd-greatest coach in college football history.
