Who is David Braun? Defensive coordinator expected to become interim coach after Pat Fitzgerald’s firing

Northwestern University is expected to name defensive coordinator David Braun as their interim head football coach following the dismissal of Pat Fitzgerald on Monday.

David Braun had been hired by Northwestern as its defensive coordinator in January of this year. Pat Fitzgerald, the team’s head coach, had made this declaration at the time. However, now that Northwestern has parted ways with head coach Pat Fitzgerald, according to several reports, Braun will run the team while a search for an interim replacement is conducted.

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Who is David Braun?

David Braun is an American football coach and former player. At the moment, he is Northwestern’s defensive coordinator.

In 2008, Braun started working as a graduate assistant at his alma university. He was hired by Culver-Stockton in 2010 as the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

David went back to Winona State in 2011 and remained there until the end of the 2014 competition as the linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator. He started working as the defensive line coach at UC Davis in 2015 and held that position through the end of 2016.

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Braun was hired by Northern Iowa in 2017 as their defensive line coach and run game coordinator. He was promoted to special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach in 2018. At North Dakota State University, he was appointed defensive coordinator and safeties coach in 2019. There, he earned two Football Championship Subdivision championships.

Northwestern hired ArentFox Schiff on January 11 to launch an investigation into allegations of harassment made by a former athlete. After almost six months, on Friday, July 7, ArentFox Schiff and the university issued the report’s conclusion, which found that hazing did take place in the Northwestern program. No proof that Fitzgerald was aware of the hazing was discovered by the investigation, but it was noted that “there had been significant opportunities to discover and report the hazing conduct.”

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Fitzgerald consequently received an initial two-week, unpaid suspension on Friday. According to recent reports, Fitzgerald will not take over as the Wildcats’ head coach after 17 seasons.