UNI football coach Todd Stepsis brings in several Drake assistants

CEDAR FALLS — New Northern Iowa football coach Todd Stepsis announced a finalized coaching staff at a news conference Monday.

Seven assistant coaches who previously worked for him at Drake have joined his staff at UNI, along with three coaches retained from former coach Mark Farley’s staff.

Al Smith and Nate Thompson — both joining from Stepsis’ previous staff at Drake — have been named UNI’s defensive and offensive coordinators, respectively.

Smith, who will also coach linebackers, held the same position with the Bulldogs the past six seasons. His defense at Drake held Pioneer Football League opponents to 12.1 points per game in 2023 and held six opponents this past season to 20 points or less.

Thompson, who was previously the offensive line coach and run game coordinator at Drake, began his tenure with the Bulldogs in 2022. It’s unclear yet whether he or Stepsis will be the play-caller.

Among position coaches, Stepsis retained longtime UNI coach Rick Nelson to continue to lead the offensive line and help build relationships for the new staff with alumni.

LaQuentin Black returns for a second season as the Panthers’ cornerbacks coach and Riley Van Whye returns under the title of defense and special teams assistant.

Michael McCourt, Jack Johnson and Jax Ostroski each come from Drake. McCourt is special teams coordinator and running backs coach, Johnson is wide receivers coach and Ostroski is an offensive line assistant who most recently was a graduate assistant at Eastern Illinois.

Christian Nussbaum joins UNI from Drake in an identical position as defensive line coach, as does Sean Hupke as safeties coach.

“Really excited about our staff coming in,” Stepsis said Monday. “Those (Drake) guys — they poured their heart and soul into that program. They’re the right type of people to really get this program where it deserves to be. Where it’s been for years and years.

“They’re going to infuse a lot of energy and a lot of passion, not only on campus, but in the community as well.”

Another notable staff member retained from last season’s staff was director of operations Logan Meyer, who was promoted to general manager.

Asked about retaining Meyer, Stepsis provided high praise, describing how Meyer was key in keeping the program on track throughout the coaching transition and how he’s since been key in roster and recruiting organization and talent evaluation.

“So knowledgeable on not only every single guy on our team, but then every single guy that was coming in. Every single target that we were looking at, and then what the next step was if we were able to maybe not cash in on some of those guys,” Stepsis said. “He’s got just a great grading scale (and) a great system to (evaluate) for all positions. After about three days with him I was like, ‘OK, what do we got to do to keep this guy around?’”

Besides speaking about his new staff, Stepsis spoke plenty about recruiting and acknowledged that, due to the current roster, the Panthers staff is evaluating more recruits in the transfer portal than they likely will in years ahead.

He also spoke intently on improving in-state recruiting efforts and described an upcoming “Iowa Blitz” effort to engage him and his new staff with high school coaches and programs across the state.

“It’s actually going to start tomorrow — we’re putting on our first ever ‘Iowa Blitz,’” Stepsis said. “Recruiting is all about relationships. We’re going to send every single coach out to a part of Iowa and we’re going to hit every single school here in the next two to three days.”