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Former Husker Zac Taylor named Bengals head coach

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Former Nebraska quarterback Zac Taylor is getting his first opportunity to become a head coach in the NFL.

On Monday, the Cincinnati Bengals announced that Taylor would be their head coach heading into the 2019 season. He’s the first former Nebraska player to be named an NFL head coach in the Super Bowl era.

Taylor was named head coach of the Bengals after spending the last two seasons on Sean McVay’s staff with the Los Angeles Rams. Last season, he was the quarterbacks coach, and in 2017 he served as the wide receivers coach.

Aside from spending four years at Texas A&M as a graduate assistant from 2008-11, all of Taylor’s coaching experience has been in the NFL. His first job came in 2012 with the Miami Dolphins, where he was the assistant quarterbacks coach. He then became the primary quarterbacks coach with the Dolphins from 2013-15 and eventually became the offensive coordinator in that final season.

In 2016, Taylor was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the Bengals for one season. After that year, he joined McVay in Los Angeles.

Taylor played at Nebraska for two seasons, 2005-06 and started in all 26 of his career games in Lincoln. He threw for 5,850 yards with 45 touchdowns while completing passes at a 57 percent clip. He was 18-11 as a starter for the Huskers.

Before landing at Nebraska, Taylor spent two seasons at Wake Forest and one at Butler Community College.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB