THE BOWL ELIGIBLE BLOG
The Youngest Head Coaches in College Football (2026)
Florida Atlantic's Zach Kittley is the only FBS head coach in the file born in 1991. See the youngest coaches, their birth years, schools, alma maters, and tenure starts.
College football's youngest head coach in the 2026 file is not a close call. Florida Atlantic's Zach Kittley was born in 1991, one year after the next-youngest group. The dataset covers all 138 FBS programs and includes a birth year for 137 coaches. The only missing year belongs to East Carolina's Blake Harrell, whose row was left blank because no source in the research states his birth date. Harrell is therefore excluded rather than guessed into the ranking.
One method note matters before the table. Most rows give a birth year, not a full birth date, so the age column is the age each coach reaches during calendar year 2026: 2026 minus birth year. That is the cleanest way to rank the file without pretending every birthday falls before the season. A coach listed as turning 40 may still be 39 on a particular fall Saturday if his birthday comes later in the year. With that rule stated, the youth movement is real.
| Birth year | Age reached in 2026 | Coach | School | Started | Alma mater |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 35 | Zach Kittley | Florida Atlantic | 2025 | Texas Tech |
| 1990 | 36 | Kenny Dillingham | Arizona State | 2023 | Arizona State |
| 1990 | 36 | Kirby Moore | Washington State | 2026 | Boise State University |
| 1989 | 37 | Ryan Beard | Coastal Carolina | 2026 | Western Kentucky University |
| 1989 | 37 | Collin Klein | Kansas State | 2026 | Kansas State |
| 1989 | 37 | Tre Lamb | Tulsa | 2025 | Tennessee Tech |
| 1989 | 37 | Will Stein | Kentucky | 2026 | Louisville |
| 1989 | 37 | Scotty Walden | UTEP | 2024 | Sul Ross State University |
| 1988 | 38 | Spencer Danielson | Boise State | 2023 | Azusa Pacific University |
| 1988 | 38 | G. J. Kinne | Texas State | 2023 | University of Tulsa |
| 1987 | 39 | Jimmy Rogers | Iowa State | 2026 | South Dakota State |
| 1987 | 39 | Tavita Pritchard | Stanford | 2026 | Stanford University |
| 1986 | 40 | Brian Hartline | South Florida | 2026 | Ohio State |
| 1986 | 40 | Joe Harasymiak | UMass | 2025 | Springfield College |
| 1986 | 40 | Dan Lanning | Oregon | 2022 | William Jewell College |
| 1986 | 40 | Sean Lewis | San Diego State | 2024 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 1986 | 40 | Marcus Freeman | Notre Dame | 2022 | Ohio State |
| 1985 | 41 | David Braun | Northwestern | 2023 | Winona State University |
| 1985 | 41 | Michael Desormeaux | Louisiana | 2022 | University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| 1985 | 41 | Eric Morris | Oklahoma State | 2026 | Texas Tech |
| 1985 | 41 | Alex Mortensen | UAB | 2025 | Arkansas |
Kittley stands alone
Kittley started at Florida Atlantic in 2025, which means the youngest coach in the file is not a brand-new 2026 experiment. He is already into his second season in the job by the file's chronology. His alma mater is Texas Tech, a reminder that the youngest list is not simply a collection of coaches hired by their own schools. Some are. Kenny Dillingham coaches Arizona State, his alma mater. Collin Klein coaches Kansas State, his alma mater. Tavita Pritchard coaches Stanford, his alma mater. Others, like Kittley and Washington State's Kirby Moore, are coaching schools other than their alma maters.
The 1989 class is the center of the wave. Five coaches in the file were born that year. Three started their current jobs in 2026: Ryan Beard at Coastal Carolina, Collin Klein at Kansas State, and Will Stein at Kentucky. Tre Lamb started at Tulsa in 2025, and Scotty Walden started at UTEP in 2024. Add Jimmy Rogers and Tavita Pritchard from the 1987 class, plus Brian Hartline from 1986, and the recent hiring cycles clearly were not afraid of a short résumé.
Young does not mean unproven
Dan Lanning and Marcus Freeman complicate the story in the right way. Both were born in 1986, both started in 2022, and both have had enough time to stop being treated as novelties. Lanning's file row carries a $56,733,333 buyout at Oregon as of December 1, 2025, which is not the contract of a coach a school views as a temporary gamble. Freeman's Notre Dame buyout is blank because Notre Dame does not disclose it, not because the job lacks leverage. The how coach buyouts work explainer is really about that moment: a young coach wins early, the market notices, and the next contract turns promise into guaranteed money.
The top of the age table also makes the sport's range hard to ignore. North Carolina's Bill Belichick was born in 1952 and reaches 74 in 2026. Iowa's Kirk Ferentz was born in 1955 and reaches 71. K. C. Keeler and Kyle Whittingham were born in 1959 and reach 67. Kittley was born 39 years after Belichick. The same profession contains a coach who reaches 35 in 2026 and one who reaches 74, both preparing for the same season.
That is why the birth-year column is more interesting than a trivia answer. It captures a sport splitting into two career models. One is the long apprenticeship that ends in a late-career shot. The other is the fast coordinator rise, where a school bets that energy, scheme, and recruiting fluency can beat a thin head-coaching record. The file cannot tell us which model will win. It can tell us the bet is being placed everywhere, from FAU and UTEP to Oregon, Notre Dame, Kentucky, and Stanford.
For the money side of the youth wave, compare Lanning's position with the biggest current and historical buyout stories, then try Buyout or Ballout. The youngest FBS coach in the file may be easy to spot. Guessing which young coach becomes too expensive to fire is the harder game.