University of Kentucky He subsequently worked as an assistant coach at Kentucky under head coach
Blanton Collier in 1959 and 1960.
University of Alabama In January 1961, Schnellenberger joined the coaching staff of the
Alabama Crimson Tide as an assistant to head coach
Bear Bryant. While on Bryant's staff, Schnellenberger helped recruit
quarterbacks
Joe Namath and
Ken Stabler, and helped coach Alabama to three
national championships (
1961,
1964, and
1965) in five seasons. Schnellenberger left Alabama in early 1966 to take a job in the
National Football League (NFL) as offensive ends coach of the
Los Angeles Rams under
George Allen. After four seasons with the Rams, Schnellenberger was hired by
Don Shula of the
Miami Dolphins in early 1970. Initially named as
wide receivers coach, He helped coach the Dolphins to their undefeated
1972 season and victory in
Super Bowl VII.
Baltimore Colts Schnellenberger signed a three-year contract to succeed
John Sandusky as head coach of the
Baltimore Colts on February 14, 1973. He was reunited with general manager
Joe Thomas, with whom he had been colleagues while with the
Miami Dolphins. He joined a team in the midst of an influx of younger players. The Colts went 4–10–0 in his one full season but managed to upset the defending Super Bowl champion Dolphins towards the end of the 1973 season, though the Dolphins second team played most of the game. His time with the Colts ended after a 30–10 defeat to the
Philadelphia Eagles at
Veterans Stadium on September 29, 1974, which extended the Colts' season-opening losing streak to three. While stalking the Colts sideline during the second half, team owner
Robert Irsay, who had a preference for
Bert Jones as the starting quarterback over
Marty Domres, asked Schnellenberger about when he was going to make such a quarterback change. Schnellenberger's sarcastic reply resulted in his postgame dismissal. Irsay had first gone to the press box to inform Thomas that he was the new head coach and then to the locker room to announce the coaching change to the Colts players before finally breaking the news to Schnellenberger in a heated discussion in the coaches office. Schnellenberger returned to the Dolphins coaching staff the following year and remained there until he was offered the head coaching job at the
University of Miami.
University of Miami head coach in
1981 In 1979, Schnellenberger arrived to a
University of Miami program that was struggling. The program was nearly dropped by the university just a few years earlier. Drawing from the boot camp methodology learned from mentors Bryant and Shula and a pro-style pass-oriented playbook not yet the norm in
college football, Schnellenberger introduced a passing game at Miami that gave them advantage over teams not equipped to defend such an aggressive offensive passing attack. By his third season at Miami, the team had twice finished the season in the
AP Poll's Top 25, something that had not happened for Miami since 1966. Schnellenberger revolutionized recruiting
South Florida high school talent by building a metaphorical "fence around South Florida" and recruiting only the "State of Miami." His eye for talent in this area led to many programs around the nation paying greater attention to South Florida high school prospects. Under his "State of Miami" plan, Schnellenberger's teams took the best from the three-county area around the city, went after the state's best, then aimed at targets among the nation's elite recruits; it became a model of how to recruit in college football. He coached Miami to its first
national championship in 1983, defeating
Nebraska in the
Orange Bowl. Following the season, Schnellenberger resigned to become part-owner, president, general manager and head coach of The Spirit of Miami of the
United States Football League, a relocated
Washington Federals franchise. In August, however, the USFL announced that it would shift to a fall schedule. The owner-to-be for the Federals backed out of the deal, knowing he could not hope to compete head-to-head with the
Miami Dolphins. A new backer moved the team to
Orlando as the
Renegades, but Schnellenberger opted not to follow the team to Central Florida. Schnellenberger was replaced as head coach of the Hurricanes by
Jimmy Johnson. Schnellenberger was interviewed about his time at the University of Miami for the documentary
The U, which premiered December 12, 2009, on
ESPN. Schnellenberger was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 1993.
University of Louisville in
Louisville, Kentucky in 2007 In 1985, Schnellenberger returned to his hometown to coach another struggling program, the
University of Louisville Cardinals. Schnellenberger inherited a situation that was as bad, if not worse, than what he'd inherited at Miami. The Cardinals had not had a winning season since 1978, and only two winning records in the previous 12 years. They played at old
Cardinal Stadium, a minor-league baseball stadium, and often hosted crowds so small that the school was forced to give tickets away. They also played in the long shadow of the school's powerful
men's basketball team. The situation was so grave at Louisville that officials were considering dropping the football program down to
NCAA Division I-AA. Nonetheless, at his opening press conference, he stunned reporters and fans by proclaiming the program "is on a collision course with the national championship. The only variable is time." After going 8–24–1 in his first three years, Schnellenberger was able to turn the program around and go 24–9–1 the next three seasons. In 10 years, he led the Cardinals to their fourth and fifth bowl games in school history. They won them both, including a 34–7 thrashing of the
Alabama Crimson Tide in the
1991 Fiesta Bowl, capping a 10–1–1 season and the school's then-highest appearance in the final AP poll (14th). The Fiesta Bowl appearance was the school's second-ever
New Year's Day bowl game, Schnellenberger left Louisville after the 1994 season. He recalled in a 2012 interview that his departure was a direct result of the impending creation of
Conference USA:I didn't leave because of money. I wasn't looking to go anywhere until that president (Dr. Donald Swain) pulled that baloney and put us in that conference that I didn't want to be in. I wasn't going to coach in a conference where I didn't have a chance to compete for the national championship. Schnellenberger was replaced by
Ron Cooper. Although Schnellenberger's record at Louisville was two games under .500 (largely due to his first three years), he has remained in the good graces of Cardinal fans due to the poor state the program was in when he arrived, giving him a reputation as a "program builder." He is also credited with laying the foundation for the program's subsequent rise to prominence. The Cardinals went to nine straight bowl games from 1998 to 2006. The Howard L. Schnellenberger Football Complex at the current
Cardinal Stadium is named after him; Schnellenberger initially proposed building the on-campus stadium during his tenure at Louisville and is credited with keeping the project alive. Repeating his bluster upon taking the Louisville job, Schnellenberger declared, "They'll write books and make movies about my time here." He also traveled across the state, with the stated goal of renewing the enthusiasm in what he called "Sooner Nation." After watching his new team for the first time in the
1994 Copper Bowl (in which Oklahoma was routed by
BYU 31–6), he alienated his soon-to-be players by declaring them "out of shape, unorganized and unmotivated" and that they disgraced Oklahoma's rich football tradition. After a 3–0 start that had the Sooners ranked in the top 10, the season quickly came unraveled after a 38–17 loss to
Colorado. That was the start of a stretch where the Sooners went only 2–5–1 the rest of the way, including a 2–5 record in conference play—Oklahoma's first losing record in conference play in 31 years and only the second since World War II. They were also defeated 12–0 by
Oklahoma State—the Sooners' first loss to their
in-state rival in 20 years. En route, the Sooners were penalized nine times per game, unusual for Schnellenberger-coached teams. The Sooners closed out the season with their second-straight shutout loss, 37–0 to No. 1
Nebraska, which denied the Sooners a winning record and a chance at a bowl game. On December 19, 1995, Schnellenberger resigned unexpectedly after one season, stating that "in recent months a climate has developed toward the program, understandably in some cases and perhaps unfairly in others, that has changed my outlook on the situation. A change could help improve that climate." Schnellenberger has not been held in high regard by Sooner fans, in part because he made no secret of his lack of interest in Oklahoma's football history (his comments after the 1994 Copper Bowl notwithstanding). Soon after his arrival, he ordered the destruction of several old football files (which were actually preserved without his knowledge). On his statewide tour, he vowed to put together a team that would make "Sooner Nation" forget about head coaches
Bud Wilkinson and
Barry Switzer. In his only year at Oklahoma, Schnelleneberger lost by one-sided margins to both
Kansas and
Kansas State. Switzer was 16–0 during his career against the Wildcats and 14–2 against the Jayhawks. After leaving Oklahoma, Schnellenberger decided to try the financial world and became a
bond salesman, passing the certification exam on his third try. When asked if he would consider coaching again, he replied, "You're not going to see me anywhere but here or at the beach." During his FAU career, he regularly pushed for a new on-campus football stadium; that goal was realized with the 2010 groundbreaking for the new
FAU Stadium. Shortly before he announced his retirement, he was featured in a pre-opening ceremony in which he switched on the stadium lights for the first time. He led the Owls out for their first home game in the new facility on October 15. On August 20, 2014, FAU announced that the field at its stadium would be named in honor of Howard Schnellenberger. During
homecoming of 2019, Schnellenberger was inducted into the FAU Hall of Fame. ==Personal life==