Yale hires Eddie Robinson Award winner Kevin Cahill as head coach

Yale officially named Kevin Cahill the Joel E. Smilow ’54 Head Coach of Yale Football on Feb. 23, 2026, bringing back a coach who spent 10 years as an assistant and offensive coordinator with the Bulldogs and who earned the 2025 Eddie Robinson Award as the nation’s top FCS coach. Cahill won the Eddie Robinson Award with 136 points from the national voting panel, finishing ahead of North Dakota State’s Tim Polasek by seven points, and became just the second Lehigh coach to win the honor after Pete Lembo in 2001.

The hire follows the unexpected departure of longtime Yale head coach Tony Reno, who announced he would step down due to health concerns on Feb. 17 after 14 seasons, 83 wins and five Ivy League titles. Yale Athletic Director Vicky Chun framed the move as a homecoming, saying, “We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome Kevin back home to the Yale Bowl. From his formative years under Coach Reno’s mentorship to his outstanding success at Lehigh, highlighted by being named the nation’s top FCS coach as the Eddie Robinson Award winner, Kevin has consistently built and supported strong, values-driven programs grounded in character and culture.”

Cahill arrives from Lehigh, where he was head coach from 2023 through 2025 and posted a 23-14 overall record and a 13-6 mark in Patriot League play. Lehigh went 2-9 in Cahill’s first season in 2023, then captured Patriot League titles in both 2024 and 2025. The Mountain Hawks defeated Lafayette 42-32 on Nov. 22 to clinch their 14th Patriot League title, compiled a 12-0 regular season in 2025 and finished the year 12-1 after a second-round playoff loss to Villanova, a 14-7 game that came after Lehigh received a first-round bye.

Lehigh’s turnaround under Cahill included the program’s first FCS playoff victory since 2011 and a run that produced an FCS-best 17 consecutive regular season wins, a Top 10 national finish in 2025 and multiple coaching honors for Cahill, including Patriot League Coach of the Year and ECAC Coach of the Year in 2024 and AFCA Region 1 Coach of the Year in 2025. Cahill acknowledged the significance of returning to New Haven, saying, “It's an honor to return to Yale Football. This legendary program has a proud history built on academic excellence, sportsmanship, and competitive success, and I look forward to working every day to build upon that foundation.”

Lehigh alumni and local leaders credited Cahill’s culture change for the rapid improvement. Mike Kosko, a Lehigh football alum who sat on the interview committee, said, “We knew we had the right guy when Kevin Cahill walked in. He was the first guy we interviewed, and we knew he was going to be the guy. He was very candid with us and said it was going to take him some time to build a winning team. The football alumni really rallied around his vision and his culture change and everything he wanted to do, and he really wanted to carry on Andy Coen’s legacy and everything Andy had built over the years. So, we were excited about Kevin, and people who had stopped coming to games started to come back.”

Cahill becomes the 35th head coach in Yale program history and inherits a Bulldogs roster that, according to Yale reporting, is not entering a rebuilding phase but is coming off a historic season that included a conference championship and the program’s first playoff victory. The move also ripples through the FCS coaching cycle; Cahill’s departure leaves Lehigh as an immediate vacancy and was counted as the 25th FCS coaching change in the current cycle. With the hire officially announced, Yale has formalized its succession less than a week after Reno’s Feb. 17 exit and has tapped a coach with recent league titles, national recognition and a documented record of program turnaround to lead the Bulldogs forward.