Mark Farley (born April 5, 1963) is an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
coach. He is the head coach at the
University of Northern Iowa
The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a public university in Cedar Falls, Iowa. UNI offers more than 90 majors across the colleges of Business Administration, Education, Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences and grad ...
, a position he has held since 2001. Farley started at inside
linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...
at Northern Iowa from 1983 to 1985. He led the team in
tackles in 1984 and 1985, was named
Gateway Football Conference Co-Defensive Player of the Year in 1985, first team all-conference three times, earned honorable mention All-America honors twice and twice named Academic All-American.
He then became an assistant at
Northern Iowa
Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...
. In 1989, he was named linebackers coach by new head coach
Terry Allen. In 1997, he followed Allen to the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...
, but left in 2001 when the head coaching position at his alma mater opened up. Acting as his own
defensive coordinator
A defensive coordinator is a coach responsible for a gridiron football (American football) team's defense. Generally, the defensive coordinator, the offensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator represent the second level of a team's c ...
, Farley's squads perennially rank among the top defense teams in the
NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. In early 2008, Farley served as the interim director of athletics at Northern Iowa.
With a win over in-state rival Iowa State on September 3, 2016, Farley passed Northern Iowa legend
Stan Sheriff
Bruce Stanley Sheriff (April 24, 1932 – January 16, 1993) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator.
Early life
Sheriff graduated from Washington High School in San Francisco.
Playing career
He played col ...
in all-time wins as a football coach. Farley notched his 150th Northern Iowa career win with a home victory over Southern Utah on September 7, 2019.
Head coaching record
See also
*
References
External links
Northern Iowa profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farley, Mark
1963 births
Living people
American football linebackers
Kansas Jayhawks football coaches
Northern Iowa Panthers football players
Northern Iowa Panthers football coaches
People from Waukon, Iowa