Tony Reno emerges as a favorite for Rice job

The Rice Owls are closing in on hiring Yale’s Tony Reno as next head coach for the football program, sources tell Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Reno has spent decades in Ivy League circles, becoming the head football coach at Yale in 2012. He’s won four conference titles in his time there, including the 2022 and 2024 championships. Yale is currently 7-2 in 2024. 

Reno, 50, is a native of Oxford, Massachusetts, and is known in the Ivy League ranks as an ace recruiter. He played free safety at Worcester State in Massachusetts and cut his teeth in the coaching industry as a defensive coordinator at his alma mater from 1998-2002. He was the defensive back coach at Yale from 2004-08 and the special teams and defensive back coach at Harvard from 2009-11 when he left for the head coaching job at Yale.