Louis Leo Holtz (January 6, 1937 – March 4, 2026) was an American college football coach. He served as the head football coach at the College of William & Mary (1969–1971), North Carolina State University (1972–1975), the New York Jets (1976), the University of Arkansas (1977–1983), the University of Minnesota (1984–1985), the University of Notre Dame (1986–1996), and the University of South Carolina (1999–2004), compiling a career college head coaching record of 249–132–7.
Holtz's 1988 Notre Dame team went 12–0 with a victory in the Fiesta Bowl and was the consensus national champion. Holtz is the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 15 rankings. After retiring from coaching, Holtz worked as a TV college football analyst for CBS Sports in the 1990s and ESPN from 2005 until 2015. Holtz was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.
Holtz was born on January 6, 1937, in Follansbee, West Virginia, the son of Anne Marie (Tychonievich) and Andrew Holtz, a bus driver. His father was of German and Irish descent, while his maternal grandparents were emigrants from Chernobyl, Ukraine.
He grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio, and graduated from East Liverpool High School in 1954. He then attended Kent State University, where he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and was a walk-on for the Kent State football team. He worked part-time at the East Liverpool Review to afford attending college. Holtz also trained under Kent State's U.S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps and earned a commission as a Field Artillery Officer in the United States Army Reserve. Holtz graduated in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in history. He then received a master's degree in arts and education from the University of Iowa in 1961.
Holtz began his coaching career in 1960 as a graduate assistant at Iowa, where he received his master's degree. From there, he made stops as an assistant at William & Mary (1961–1963), Connecticut (1964–1965), South Carolina (1966–1967) and Ohio State (1968). The 1968 Ohio State team won a national championship with Holtz as an assistant.
Holtz's first job as head coach came in 1969 at the College of William & Mary, who played in the Southern Conference at that time. He led the 1970 William & Mary Indians (now Tribe) to the Southern Conference title and a berth in the Tangerine Bowl.
In 1972, Holtz moved to North Carolina State University and had a 33–12–3 record in four seasons. His first three teams achieved final Top 20 rankings including a final Top 10 finish in the 1974 Coaches Poll. His 1973 team won the ACC Championship. His Wolfpack teams played in four bowl games, going 2–1–1. Following the 1975 season, Holtz accepted an offer to leave college football and become the head coach of the NFL's New York Jets.
Holtz's lone foray into the NFL professional ranks began when he was appointed head coach of the New York Jets on February 10, 1976. He was selected over Johnny Majors, Darryl Rogers, and Marv Levy. Holtz resigned ten months later on December 9 with the Jets at 3–10 and one game remaining in the 1976 season. Upon his departure, he lamented, "God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros."
Holtz went to the University of Arkansas as the new head football coach in 1977. In his seven years there, the Razorbacks compiled a 60–21–2 record and reached six bowl games. In his first season at Arkansas, he led the 1977 Razorbacks to a berth in the 1978 Orange Bowl against the Oklahoma Sooners, then coached by University of Arkansas alumnus Barry Switzer. The Sooners were in position to win their third national championship in four seasons after top-ranked Texas lost earlier in the day to fifth-ranked Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Arkansas' chances looked slim after the team lost several key personnel just before the game. In one of his last practices, All-American guard, Leotis Harris suffered a season-ending injury, and only a couple of days later Holtz suspended both starting running backs, Ben Cowins and Michael Forrest, and top receiver, Donny Bobo, for disciplinary reasons. However, behind an Orange Bowl record of 205 yards rushing from reserve running back Roland Sales the Hogs defeated the Sooners, 31–6. That team was recognized by the Rothman (FACT) poll as co-national champions, along with Texas and Notre Dame for 1977. Holtz was widely considered to be the leading candidate to replace Woody Hayes at Ohio State in 1979, but Holtz did not pursue the job because he did not want to follow Hayes.
After a 9-2-1 record with the 1978 Razorbacks and a tie in the 1978 Fiesta Bowl against UCLA, Holtz led the 1979 Razorbacks to a 10–2 record and a share of the SWC championship in 1979. His 1980 team slipped to 7-5 but beat Tulane in the Hall of Fame Classic, and his 1981 squad finished 8-4 after losing to North Carolina in the Gator Bowl. Holtz and his 1982 Hogs finished with a 9-2-1 record after a Bluebonnet Bowl victory over Florida.
Holtz was then dismissed following a 6–5 1983 campaign. At the time, athletic director Frank Broyles stated that Holtz had resigned because he was "tired and burned out", and was not fired. When the university was sued in 2004 in a federal discrimination lawsuit involving Nolan Richardson, Broyles testified about his practices as athletic director that cited Holtz's firing as an example, stating that he had fired Holtz because he was losing the fan base with things he said and did. Holtz confirmed that he had been fired, but that Broyles never gave him a reason, although reports cited his political involvement as a major reason: controversy arose over his having taped two television advertisements from his coach's office endorsing the re-election of Jesse Helms as Senator from North Carolina at a time when Helms was leading the effort to block Martin Luther King Jr. Day from becoming a national holiday.
Holtz accepted the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota before the 1984 season. The 1983 Golden Gophers had only won one game vs. Rice in 1983, but under Holtz 1984 team won four games including 3 in the Big Ten. The 1985 team was 7-5 and were invited to the 1985 Independence Bowl, where they defeated Clemson, 20–13. Holtz did not coach the Gophers in that bowl game, as he had already accepted the head coaching position at Notre Dame. His contract purportedly included a "Notre Dame clause" that allowed him to leave if that coaching job were to become available.
Holtz's tenure at Minnesota was not without controversy. Just prior to the 1991 Orange Bowl, the NCAA implicated the Holtz-era Golden Gophers for recruiting violations. Sanctions handed down in March 1991 included a bowl ban in 1992 for the Golden Gophers and "two more years ... [of] continued probation".
In 1986, Holtz left Minnesota to take over the then-struggling Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program. A taskmaster and strict disciplinarian, Holtz had the names removed from the backs of the players' jerseys when he took over at Notre Dame, wanting to emphasize team effort. With the exception of select bowl games, names have not been included on Notre Dame's jerseys since. Although his 1986 squad posted an identical 5–6 mark to the one that the 1985 edition had, five of their six losses were by a combined total of 14 points. In the season finale against their archrival USC Trojans, Notre Dame overcame a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit and pulled out a 38–37 win.
In his second season, Holtz led the 1987 Fighting Irish to an appearance in the 1988 Cotton Bowl Classic, where the Irish lost to the Texas A&M Aggies, 35–10. The following year (1988), Notre Dame won all eleven of their regular season games and defeated the third-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers 34–21 in the Fiesta Bowl, claiming the national championship. During that season, on October 15, Notre Dame upset the top-ranked Miami Hurricanes, ending their 36-game regular season game winning streak, in what is widely known as the "Catholics vs. Convicts" game. The game is considered one of the most memorable games in all of college football history.