Former Pitt HC Dave Wannstedt Turns Down Northwestern Job
PITTSBURGH -- Northwestern is scrambling. After having to fire head coach Pat Fitzgerald this month, the Wildcats are left to find someone new to lead their program with just under six weeks left until the start of the 2023 season and one of their top targets was a former Pitt Panthers head coach.
Northwestern reached out to Pitt alum and former coach Dave Wannstedt, but he rejected the offer for consideration, according to a report from the Mully and Hugh Show, a radio program on 670 The Score in Chicago.
Wannstedt, a native of Pittsburgh, played offensive line for Pitt from 1972 to 1975 and blocked for Tony Dorsett during his Heisman Trophy-winning season. He then took a graduate assistant coaching job under Johnny Majors in 1975 and helped the Panthers win a national championship in 1976.
He coached defensive line at Oklahoma State under Jimmy Johnson and made a stop at USC before reuniting with Johnson at Miami in 1986. Wannstedt won a second national championship as an assistant coach in 1987 with the Hurricanes before leaving for the NFL.
Wannstedt spent the next 15 years as a defensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins and Chicago Bears and took over as head coach . He then took the vacant head coaching job at Pitt in 2005 after Walt Harris was forced to resign.
He ended his tenure with the Panthers owning a 42-31 record that included two bowl appearances and a No. 15 finish in the AP poll in 2009.
Wannstedt returned to the NFL after he was fired in 2010, coaching for the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring and taking a job as a studio analyst with FOX College Football.
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