The Yale Bulldogs have brought former assistant coach Kevin Cahill back to New Haven. Cahill was previously the head coach at Lehigh from 2023 through 2025, leading the Mountain Hawks to a 23-14 overall record. Cahill went 12-0 in the regular season in 2025 and captured FCS Coach of the Year honors.
Cahill played collegiately at Springfield College in Massachusetts from 1997 through 2000. He immediately went into coaching at Maine Maritime as an assistant coach for the 2001 season, before returning to his alma mater in 2002 and 2003. He jumped up to the FCS level (then called Division I-AA) in 2004 as the wide receivers coach at UT Martin. After two seasons, he would move to Murray State for the same role during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.
In 2008, he became the running backs coach at Maine. He moved to special teams and wide receivers coach from 2009 through 2011. In 2012, he joined Yale for the same role, but would steadily progress his responsibilities. In 2014, he was named assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. He would keep those duties and add offensive coordinator starting in 2018. He held the associate head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterback coach responsibilities through the 2022 season, before leaving to take over at Lehigh.
In 2023, Cahill started his tenure at Lehigh. He took over for Tom Gilmore, who went 9-27 overall and 8-13 in the Patriot League in his four seasons. Cahill went 2-9 overall and 1-5 in the Patriot League in his first season. Lehigh improved to 9-4 overall and won the Patriot League in 2024. The Mountain Hawks reached the second round of the FCS playoffs, but lost on the road to Idaho.
In 2025, Lehigh went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season and won the Patriot League outright. It was the first time since 2016-17 that Lehigh won back-to-back conference titles. Lehigh was awarded the fifth seed in the FCS playoffs, which provided them a bye to the second round. In a defensive game, along with some untimely fumbles, Lehigh lost 14-7. Cahill won the Eddie Robinson Award given to the top FCS head coach at season’s end.
Cahill will take over for Tony Reno, who stepped down earlier in February due to health issues. Cahill was part of Reno’s staff from 2012 through 2022, helping the Bulldogs capture three Ivy League titles in that time. Yale won the Ivy League’s first-ever automatic qualifying bid to the FCS playoffs in 2025 under Reno and subsequently went 1-1, losing to eventual national champion Montana State in the second round. Reno went 83-49 overall and 55-36 in the Ivy League while at Yale from 2012 through 2025.
Cahill’s move from Lehigh to Yale becomes the 25th FCS coaching change to occur in the current cycle, and makes Lehigh the only vacancy in the subdivision for the time being. 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 Lehigh University Athletics
