Nebraska football is nearing its next special teams coordinator, according to reports. Mike Ekeler, who is a native of David City, Neb., and a graduate of Blair High School, will take over leading the Huskers’ special teams.
Ekeler, who played his college football at Kansas State, coached for Nebraska from 2008-2010 under Bo Pelini. He left NU for a co-defensive coordinator job at Indiana, where he coached for two season. After a season at USC, Ekeler moved to Georgia, where he served as special teams coordinator and linebackers coach. He moved on to North Texas in 2016 as a defensive coordinator, then moved to North Carolina. Ekeler worked at Kansas as special teams coordinator for a season, then ran North Texas’s special teams for a year before being hired as Tennessee’s special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach since 2021.
During both his playing and coaching tenures, Ekeler was known for his tenacity and intensity. He was a standout for Kansas State at a linebacker and on special teams from 1991-94. He began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Omaha Skutt High School in 1999 and worked there for three seasons before going to Manhattan High School in Kansas for a season. He then joined Oklahoma’s staff as a graduate assistant in 2003. The following year, he met Bo Pelini, who’d just come to Norman from Lincoln. Ekeler followed Pelini to LSU to serve as a GA before following Pelini to Lincoln in 2008.