‘Student of the game’: How Hutchinson’s Nate Dreiling became youngest FBS head coach

The first inkling Nate Dreiling could be a football coach someday came in the eighth grade.

Randy Dreiling, his father who was busy at the time building a dynasty at Hutchinson High, was informed by a middle-school coach that Nate was already adjusting blocking schemes on plays in the huddle.

“He has always been a student of the game,” said Randy Dreiling with a chuckle.

Fast forward two decades and Nate Dreiling, now 33, became the young head coach in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision on Tuesday when he was named interim head coach at Utah State. The previous coach, Blake Anderson, was fired following an external investigation of alleged noncompliance of Title IX policies.

It has been a meteoric rise in the coaching world for Nate Dreiling, who was a star linebacker at Hutchinson and an All-American player for Pittsburg State who helped the Gorillas win a national championship in 2011.

After a brief professional playing career, he was a graduate assistant at Kansas from 2015-16 before returning to Pittsburg State to serve as the defensive coordinator from 2018-19.

He was then scooped up by former Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal to serve as a defensive analyst for the Ducks in 2020. The next season Dreiling was the defensive run game coordinator for Southeast Missouri State, then Cheney native Jerry Kill hired him as his defensive coordinator at New Mexico State for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

That’s where Dreiling began to earn his reputation as a rising star in the coaching world, as he helped New Mexico State win 17 games in two years, including a 10-win record, an upset win at Auburn and a berth in the Conference USA championship game this past season.

“I can’t say it’s a shock because I knew Nate was going to be good,” Randy Dreiling said. “But you have to give credit because he’s been very fortunate. They don’t usually hire coaches from losing programs, so he’s been very fortunate to be with good people and good programs. I’m tremendously proud of his success because there’s a lot of good coaches in this industry and they don’t always win. Hopefully he can keep it going.”

Dreiling was hired as the Utah State defensive coordinator in January, but will now assume the interim duties entering the 2024 season. The Aggies are coming off a 6-7 season, but return plenty of experience and could make a push up the Mountain West standings this season.

Randy Dreiling knows a thing or two about running successful football programs, having won seven Kansas high school state championships in an eight-year span at Hutchinson and then two more at his current job as head coach at St. Thomas Aquinas.

“Nate understands what coaching is from being around us all those years, so he knows what it takes,” Randy Dreiling said. “What has always impressed me has been his ability to pick up on things so quickly and relate them to his team.”