The 2012 season marks John Lyons’ second as defensive
coordinator/defensive backs coach for the Wildcats. Lyons, the
second-winningest head football coach in Dartmouth College
history, was hired Jan. 21, 2011.
In Lyons’ first season at the
helm, junior linebacker Matt Evans won the Buck Buchanan Award as
the nation’s top defensive player –the first Wildcat to
ever accomplish that feat. Evans finished tops in the country with
7.7 solo tackles/game, and sophomore safety Chris Beranger finished
second in the CAA and third in the FCS with 77 solo stops.
Lyons earned 60 career victories as
the head coach at Dartmouth from 1992-2004. His Big Green teams won
two Ivy League championships (1992, 1996), including a perfect 10-0
season in ’96 when Lyons was named the New England Coach of
the Year by the New England sports writers and the Division I N.E.
Coach of the Year by the Gridiron Club of Boston.
The West Hartford, Conn., native
most recently worked at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N.H.,
where he served as football coach from 2005-10 and athletic
director from 2008-10. He guided the school to three consecutive
Evergreen League championships from 2007-2009.
Previously, Lyons spent three
seasons (2005-07) in NFL Europe for the Cologne Centurions, the
last two years as defensive coordinator. Under his tutelage, the
Centurions had the league’s top total defense in 2005 and
2007 and the No. 1 pass yardage defense in 2006.
While serving as defensive
coordinator at Boston University from 1985-87, Lyons led the
Terriers to the top rated pass defense and No. 2 total defense in
the Yankee Conference during his final season.
Lyons, who graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1974, began his coaching career at
his alma mater, climbing his way up from an assistant freshman
coach in his first season (1974) to the role of defensive
coordinator in 1984 for an undefeated Ivy League championship
Quakers team that featured the No. 1 total defense in the
league. He played three years at Penn, and was an All-Ivy
League Second-Team selection.
