Why new Oklahoma State football DC Bryan Nardo is 'a coach you want in your program'
STILLWATER — It seems like only yesterday when Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy famously hired an off-the-radar Division II assistant coach from a tiny Pennsylvania college to be a Cowboy coordinator.
Depending on when you’re reading this, it might’ve been.
A decade ago, Gundy caught the attention of the college football world when he hired Mike Yurcich from Shippensburg University to run his offense.
On Tuesday, Gundy virtually repeated history when he hired Bryan Nardo from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, to take over the Cowboy defense.
Nardo helped Gannon to a serious defensive turnaround in his lone season, which nearly ended with nine wins if not for an overtime defeat in the season finale.
Who beat Gannon that day, you ask?
The mighty Raiders of Shippensburg.
Gundy, of course, has never worried about what the outside world thinks. He wants only to hire a coach who he believes will take the OSU defense to the next level.
And Gundy believes Nardo is that guy.
Here are five things to know about Oklahoma State’s new defensive coordinator:
More:Why did Braden Cassity opt for extra year with Oklahoma State football? 'Nowhere else I wanna be'
Bryan Nardo has a young family
The 37-year-old Nardo and his wife, Emma, have two sons: Dominick, who was born in 2019, Elijah, born last June.
Having spent eight years in Emporia, Kansas, the move to Stillwater shouldn’t be too much of a culture shock for Nardo, who otherwise spent most of his coaching career in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“This is an exciting time for my family,” Nardo said in OSU’s press release. “Emma, Dominick, Elijah and I are excited to get to Stillwater and begin building relationships within the community.”
More:National Signing Day tracker: Oklahoma State football signees, 2023 recruiting rankings
Where is Oklahoma State football assistant coach Bryan Nardo from?
When you start scrolling the list, some names jump out at you.
Ted Ginn Jr., who went to star at Ohio State before his NFL career. Marcus Freeman, another Buckeye player who is now the head coach at Notre Dame.
Other names aren’t as widely recognizable.
But if you scroll far enough down the list of 2003 Ohio High School All-State football players — down to the Division VI honorable mentions — you’ll find Bryan Nardo of St. John’s Central in Bellaire.
From the hometown of Shadyside, Ohio, Nardo was a three-sport star at nearby St. John’s Central, but his playing career did not last beyond his inclusion on the 2003 All-State team.
Coming from a coaching family, Nardo seemed to know that was his path. He enrolled at Ohio University and joined the football program as a student assistant in 2004.
Nardo and his two brothers, Matt and Luke, followed their father, Perry, and his passion for coaching. Though Perry's primary career has been in the newspaper industry, he spent several years as a junior high and high school coach on the side.
Matt, the oldest of the three brothers, was first to make the jump to college coaching as a student assistant at Ohio. He is now the head coach at Bluffton University, a Division III program in Ohio, and Luke is a graduate assistant at Ohio.
More:OSU football player tracker: Keeping up with Cowboys in transfer portal & bound for NFL
Big Eight connections for Bryan Nardo
On Oct. 11, 1986, Nardo had not yet celebrated his first birthday, but his football future was doing battle in Lincoln, Nebraska.
That day, the Nebraska Cornhuskers — with running backs coach Frank Solich — defeated Oklahoma State, quarterbacked by Mike Gundy, 30-10 at Memorial Stadium.
Nineteen years later, Solich became the head coach at Ohio, where Nardo was entering his second season as a student assistant. He held that role until his graduation, then stayed with the Bobcats as a graduate assistant for three more seasons, through 2010.
“He was just a young coach back then — of course, I still think he’s a young coach,” the 78-year-old Solich joked during an interview with The Oklahoman on Tuesday. “You could tell early on that he had everything it takes to be a coach you want in your program. When it came to his ability to relate to coaches, it made no difference if they were the young coaches on the staff or the older coaches on the staff, he related to all coaches very well.
“He was able to bring forward ideas. He never held back, even when he was the young guy in the room. It became clear that he was a coach who was gonna add to your staff.”
After Ohio, Nardo got his first real job as the linebackers coach at Missouri S&T, but that lasted just one season before he left for Emporia State in Kansas, where he quickly elevated to defensive coordinator.
More:'Big ol' gas tank': Dustin Plott's energy helps Oklahoma State wrestling to victory
A scheme change at Emporia
If you’re looking for one key event that led to Nardo being hired at Oklahoma State, it happened between the 2017 and 2018 seasons while he was at Emporia State.
During Nardo’s first six seasons with the Hornets — one as linebackers coach and the next five as co-coordinator or solo coordinator — they ran a traditional 4-3 defense. But he had seen the rise of the 3-3-5 scheme, particularly the way Iowa State defensive coordinator Jon Heacock was running it, and wanted to convert his defense.
Gundy always speaks highly of Heacock’s scheme, and it became clear in the days since Derek Mason announced his plan to take a sabbatical from college coaching that Gundy was pursuing a shift to the 3-3-5.
“Bryan changed our scheme to that look Iowa State was known for, and he built it from that,” Emporia State head coach Garin Higgins said on Tuesday. “He basically built the defense, and it made a difference immediately.
“A lot of people are learning about this defense, and Bryan knows it as good as anybody I’ve ever seen. And he’s made it his own, too. He’s studied enough film and the scheme has grown. He’s got his own stamp on it.”
In 2017, Emporia was in the bottom half of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association in every notable defensive category. In 2019, the second season running the new scheme, Emporia ranked No. 1 in the league in pass defense, No. 2 in total defense, and No. 3 in rush defense and scoring defense.
The 2017 defense gave up 436.6 yards and 28.3 points per game. The 2019 defense allowed 327.4 yards and 24.6 points per game.
After the 2019 season, Nardo made his first jump to the Division I level as linebackers coach at Youngstown State in the Football Championship Subdivision. He spent two seasons there, but left the program after the 2021 season, eventually landing at Gannon.
More:Tramel's ScissorTales: How former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren tried to help Big 12
The Gannon turnaround
It was roughly a year ago when Nardo was hired by Erik Raeburn to run the Gannon defense.
The unit had allowed 393.3 yards per game in 2021 running a 4-3 scheme, but with Nardo’s change to the 3-3-5, Gannon gave up just 287.4 yards per game while going 8-3 this past season.
What might have seemed like a detour on Nardo’s journey up the coaching ladder turned out to be the perfect landing spot to reignite his rise.
Gannon’s quick turnaround is a sign of Nardo’s knack for teaching, one of the qualities everyone who has worked with him will point to.
“He coached our guys hard, but did it in a way that built their confidence,” Raeburn said. “I wanted to switch to that scheme, playing three safeties, but the way he built our guys’ confidence turned out to make a bigger impact than the scheme itself.”
And while changing defensive schemes can be a challenge, Nardo has proven his ability to impart the knowledge in an understandable fashion.
“It was pretty smooth,” Raeburn said. “He won the players over right away. They got excited about the change. It was a lot of hard work, for sure, but because our players bought in, it made it go a lot smoother.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: New Oklahoma State football DC Bryan Nardo is 'a coach you want'
