After four seasons as the head coach at Wyoming, Jeff Linder has reportedly resigned to become the lead assistant on Grant McCasland’s staff at Texas Tech. Linder went 63-59 with the Cowboys, going to the NCAA Tournament in 2022. He previously spent four years as the head coach at Northern Colorado.
Linder is a Colorado-native who has worked as an assistant at Boise State, San Francisco and Weber State, among other stops. The 46-year old was named Big Sky COY in 2019 after leading the UNC Bears his second of three-straight 21+ win seasons, and the year prior coached the team to a CIT crown.
The University signed Linder to an extension in March 2022 that would have kept him in Laramie through the 2026-27 season. He (and Texas Tech) will reportedly owe Wyoming in the neighborhood of $700k for breaking the deal early.
In what is a growing trend in the NIL Era, Linder becomes the fourth mid- or low-major head coach to resign in favor of a staff job elsewhere, joining Dan Engelstad (now at Syracuse), Gerald Gillion (LIU) and Mark Slessinger (Indiana State).
credit to Wyoming Athletics for the image