Jerry Glanville is, at age 82, back coaching in college football as the defensive coordinator at Northwestern Oklahoma State.

The NCAA Division II program in Alva announced the hiring Wednesday of Glanville, former head coach of the NFL’s Houston Oilers (1985-89) and Atlanta Falcons (1990-93).

“When I accepted this job at Northwestern, I promised to do everything in my power to bring back the winning tradition of the Ranger Football program,” Rangers head coach Ronnie Jones said in a statement. “Bringing coach Jerry Glanville is a major step in that direction. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our program. He is considered one of the greatest defensive coaches to ever coach the game and I can’t wait to watch him turn our defense into a dominating unit.”

Northwestern Oklahoma State went 1-10 in 2023, its first season under Jones, who played for the Rangers and went on to coach in the NFL.

Glanville went 33-32 with the Oilers and 27-37 with the Falcons. He also was a defensive backs coach (1977-78) and defensive coordinator (1979-82) in Atlanta and DC in Houston from 1984-85.

His coaching career at the college level began in 1967 as DC at Western Kentucky, then as a defensive assistant at Georgia Tech from 1968-73. He made the jump to the NFL and the Detroit Lions as a defensive assistant and special teams coordinator (1974-76).

More recently, Glanville was DC at Hawaii from 2005-06 and head coach at Portland State from 2007-09, going 9-24. He also was DC for the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2018 and for the XFL’s Tampa Bay Vipers in 2020.

He was the head coach of Major League Football’s Alabama Airborne in Mobile in 2022.

–Field Level Media