Dana Holgorsen Offers Incredibly Honest Reason About Why He Took Nebraska Job

Dana Holgorsen might be in a new place again, but he’s bringing the same personality. And Holgorsen proved that again on Tuesday while speaking with Nebraska media.

When directly asked why he took the job with the Cornhuskers, the former West Virginia and Houston head coach couldn’t help himself.

“I was bored,” responded Holgorsen.

He then opened up about not truly feeling apart of the game strategy while at TCU and not being ready for a bigger position when he first talked to Nebraska over the summer.

Below is Holgorsen’s full response with credit to Amie Just of the Lincoln Journal Star for transcribing the entire quote.

“I was bored. [pauses] I have a great deal of respect for coach Rhule. We visited in December and I didn’t think it was fair to him, me or the program at that point. I was tired, I had been through a lot. Just didn’t have to do it at that point and I didn’t feel like I was ready to give it my all. I was very grateful to Sonny Dykes and TCU for being a consultant there, which kept me around the game. I was there for three weeks in camp, then went on vacation for two weeks and came back. I was there for two games and I didn’t like being part of the games, because I wasn’t part of the games. I was up in the head coach’s suite for a game and I was on the sidelines for a game. I was just like ‘I don’t like this part of it.’ “If I don’t have any control over it, I don’t want to do it. I would just help prep them in the beginning of the week and then I would go do something else. It was fun to do other things, but I was slated to go back to Fort Worth on Sunday night and Coach Rhule called and said ‘let’s come try to figure this out. I need your help.’ I was grateful to him for saying that ‘I needed your help.’ I think a great deal of him. I think a great deal of this program. I was excited to jump on it. Rules allow it now. In years past, rules wouldn’t have allowed it. I just wanted to insert myself and try to help Coach Rhule and try to help this football team and try to help this great program.”

Holgorsen, who is now two weeks into his tenure with Nebraska, has already been elevated from offensive consultant to offensive coordinator. Up until this change, he had been working in a consultant role with TCU. He initially talked to Nebraska before joining Sonny Dykes at TCU.

Holgorsen joined the TCU staff after being fired by Houston following the conclusion of the 2023 season.

The 52-year-old Holgorsen finished his Houston tenure with a 31-28 record in five seasons. Houston went 4-8 in 2023, the program’s first year in the Big 12 Conference. One of those four wins was over WVU.

After eight years at West Virginia, Holgorsen left the Mountaineers following the 2018 season to take over a then budding Group of 5 Houston program with the thought he would help guide the Cougars through an eventual transition into a major conference.

Dana Holgorsen led WVU to a 61-41 overall record, two 10-win seasons and an Orange Bowl trophy. Holgorsen addressed his divorce from WVU in August during his introductory press conference with TCU.

“I had reasons why I did that. I had been at West Virginia for eight years and was very successful. But there was a couple of things that I was concerned about that made me do that. I do not regret that. You look at what happened at Houston. I mean, we were 4-8 in the first year in the Big 12 I guess that’s not good enough. But a couple years prior to that in the American, which is why I went there, we won 20 games in two years. We had some success and I don’t regret that either.”

Holgorsen did compliment the people within the West Virginia program when he talked about the death of former Mountaineer offensive lineman Dale Wolfley in October.

For a related story, WV Sports Now’s Mike Asti put Holgorsen’s overall West Virginia tenure in its proper perspective leading up to his matchup with WVU during the 2023 season.

Find more coverage of Dana Holgorsen at WV Sports Now.