Yale head coach Tony Reno resigned from his position for health reasons. Reno has been in charge of the Bulldogs since 2012, amassing an 83-49 overall record and going 55-36 in Ivy League games.
Reno’s tenure featured five Ivy League titles for Yale, including a share of the 2025 crown. Yale defeated Harvard in the regular season finale to clinch the Ivy League’s first-ever FCS playoff automatic qualifying bid. Reno’s 83 wins are the second most in Yale football history and he was named Ivy League Coach of the Year for the 2022 and 2025 seasons.
Reno played collegiately at Worcester State from 1993 through1996 and started his coaching career in 1997 at King’s College in Pennsylvania. He returned to Worcester State for five seasons from 1998 through 2002 as the defensive coordinator. In 2003, he became the wide receivers coach at Yale and then switched to the defensive backs in 2004. He remained with the Bulldogs through 2008 before leaving to join Harvard. From 2009 through 2011, Reno coached the special teams and defensive backs for the Crimson. He returned to Yale in 2012 as head coach.
The Bulldogs didn’t capture an Ivy League title in Reno’s first five years. In 2017, Yale broke through to win the title for the first time since 2006. The Bulldogs would also share the 2019 title, finishing with the same 9-1 record as the 2017 championship team. After not fielding a team for the 2020-21 season, Yale went 5-5 during the 2021 fall season. Reno was able to end his career at Yale with three titles in the final four seasons. The Bulldogs won the Ivy League title outright in 2022, shared the 2023 title with Dartmouth and Harvard, and shared the 2025 title with Harvard.
The 2025 season was the first time that the Ivy League participated in the FCS playoffs. Yale erased a 28-point second half deficit to stun Youngstown State on the road in the first round. The second round matchup was at Montana State and Yale made the Bobcats work for the win. Yale cut the deficit to 14-6 early in the fourth quarter and later made it 21-13 in the final minutes, but couldn’t pull off another upset. Montana State would go on to win the FCS National Championship.
Reno is the 24th FCS coaching change to occur in the current cycle. Albany (CAA), Bucknell (Patriot League), Cal Poly (Big Sky), Drake (PFL), Florida A&M (SWAC), Gardner-Webb (OVC-Big South) Hampton (CAA), Howard (MEAC), Mercer (SoCon), Mercyhurst (NEC), Monmouth (CAA), Montana (Big Sky), New Hampshire (CAA), Penn (Ivy League), Portland State (Big Sky), Presbyterian (PFL), Sacramento State (Big Sky), Samford (SoCon), South Dakota (MVFC), Southern (SWAC), VMI (SoCon), Weber State (Big Sky), and West Georgia (UAC) have also announced changes. The full list of changes can be found here.
Photo Credit to Yale University Athletics
