How’s it Going? Reviewing Second Year DI Head Coaches From the 2025-2026 NCAA Season

We are continuing our review of head coaches and their first couple years at the head of their programs with the 2nd-year head coaches.

• See Also: First Year Head Coaches Review

There are a lot more 2nd year head coaches than first years, so this review is going to be slightly different than the 1st year coaches. Overall, there were 20 new head coaches and 12 promoted coaches following the 2024-2025 season.

See last year’s review here.

SEC

Texas

There are a few high-profile programs with 2nd year head coaches including Texas’ Bob Bowman.

Bowman took over after longtime head coach Eddie Reese retired following the 2024 season and he has won back-to-back NCAA titles with the Longhorn men. They were coming off one of their worst NCAA finishes in recent memory in 2024, finishing 7th overall. The last two years, the Texas team has bounced back in a major way.

They are losing a few major players, including Hubert Kos, following the 2026 season, which puts a little more pressure on Bowman as he tries to three-peat in 2027.

Texas A&M

Bowman is not the only SEC coach to be in their 2nd year leading the program. Texas A&M hired Blaire Bachman as the Director of Swimming and Diving at the start of the 2024-2025 season. The Aggies were coming off a strong year that saw the men finish 4th and women finish 3rd at the SEC Championships in 2024. The men also finished 16th at NCAAs and the women were 14th.

The men saw a slide at the 2025 SECs, dropping to 8th, but then they moved up to 12th overall at the NCAA Championships. The women saw the opposite effect, jumping up at SECs, even with the addition of Texas, to finish 4th. They had a major drop at NCAAs, though, finishing 26th.

In Bachman’s 2nd season, both teams slid back even further with the men and women finishing 9th at SECs and 30th at NCAAs. The Aggies have some major improvements to make in the coming season if they want to stay in the top-10 at SECs.

Conference Performance

NCAA Performance

Big 12

ASU

The other major NCAA player who got a new coach in 2024 was ASU. After Bowman left to coach Texas, associate head coach Herbie Behm was promoted into the head coach role.

The ASU men were coming off their highest finish in NCAA history, winning the title in 2024 with Bowman before Behm’s promotion. In 2025, the ASU women won their first ever conference title in the Big 12, while the men won their 3rd consecutive conference title. At NCAAs, the Sun Devil women moved up from 24th to 19th, while the men finished 6th.

In 2026, the men and women again won the Big 12 titles. At NCAAs, the women dropped back to 38th while the men jumped up to 4th, though they were favored to finish 2nd heading into the meet.

Arizona

The Big 12 also saw a few other head coaching shifts. Ben Loorz was hired to lead the Arizona men’s and women’s teams after Augie Bush was fired after seven seasons with the program. The Wildcat men have been in line with their 2024 performances at the last two NCAA Championships, and the women scored points in 2025 again after not scoring in 2024.

They also finished 2nd at the Big 12 Championships in the last two seasons.

BYU

Tamber McAllister took over for Shari Skabelund at the head of the BYU program. The Cougars had a huge season in 2025 with Mackenzie Lung (then Mackenzie Miller) finishing 2nd in the 200 breaststroke and 7th in the 100 breaststroke at the 2025 SEC Championships.

At this year’s Big 12 Championships, the BYU men had a strong performance, finishing 5th with Tanner Nelson winning the 400 IM in 3:44.46, earning an NCAA invite in the event. The women dropped one place to finish 9th overall.

West Virginia

West Virginia’s Brent Macdonald took over the men’s and women’s head coach position from Vic Riggs, leaving his role at Xavier University.

The WVU men saw a slight slide in 2025, though that can be attributed to the introduction of Arizona and ASU to the conference. They maintained their position this year, scoring 641 points to finish 7th overall. The women dropped three places in 2025 from 6th-9th, and they dropped an additional place in 2026 to finish 10th out of 10 teams.

The men did qualify one diver, Levi Hellmann, to the NCAA Championships.

Iowa State

Finally, Iowa State, which is women’s only, saw Matt Leach, the former head coach at Washington State, take over the role following the 2024 season.

The Iowa State women saw a slight improvement in 2025, dropping just one spot in the Big 12, even with the addition of Arizona and ASU. They maintained that position in 2026. Grace Swoboda was a highlight on the women’s team, finishing 5th in the 100 breast and 6th in the 200 breast at the Big 12 Championships. She went on to take 2nd in the 100 breast at the CSCAA Championships in March.

Conference Performance

NCAA Performance

ACC

Georgia Tech

John Ames, the former head diving coach of the Georgia Tech program, was promoted to interim head coach in August of 2024 after former coach Courtney Hart left the program. In February of 2025, the interim label was removed.

The Yellowjackets have broken or tied 17 team records since Ames took over the program. The women maintained their 13th place position from 2025 at the ACC Championships while the men dropped from 9th to 12th this season.

Boston College

The BC team was coming off a suspension in 2024 due to a hazing incident when Dara Torres took over the program.

In 2025, the teams broke multiple school records at the ACC Championships, and at this year’s meet, they set four more records. The women maintained their conference placement from last season of 15th, while the men dropped two spots to 15th.

Conference Performance

Big Ten

Penn State

Penn State was the only Big Ten school that had a coaching change after the 2024 season. Hollie Bonewit-Cron joined the program from Miami University (OH).

Both teams saw a slight slip in 2025, with the men dropping from 7th to 9th and the women moving from 9th-12th. In 2026, the men maintained their 9th place position and the women slipped an additional spot to finish 13th overall.

Mid-Major

Mountain West

Washington State

The Washington State women’s team is an interesting aspect in the mid-major conversation because they previously competed in the Pac-12 before the conference was disbanded following the 2024 season. They also regularly score at the NCAA Championships and are the only school in this category with NCAA results all three years.

They joined the Mountain West conference at the start of the 2025 season at the same time Russell Whitaker was promoted into the head coach position.

In 2025, the Washington State women had a massive improvement at the NCAA Championships, qualifying three swimmers for the meet including Emily Lundgren. Lundgren qualified for NCAAs again this season, scoring in the 200 breaststroke with her 15th place finish, though she was off her best times all year. Darcy Revitt also qualified again, setting new personal best times in the 50 free, 100 free, and 200 free at all three meets.

This year, they finished 2nd at Mountain West Championships, a huge jump from their 5th place finish in 2025.

UNLV Women

There are a number of teams on this list whose men’s and women’s teams compete in different conferences, and the UNLV Rebels are one of them. The women compete in the Mountain West with Washington State.

They qualified two swimmers for the NCAA Championships this year, Rachel Wigginton and Ava Olson. They finished 3rd at the Mountain West Championships, dropping one spot from their 2nd place finishes in 2024 and 2025

They have not scored points at NCAAs any of the three years we are tracking.

Conference Performance

NCAA Performance

Atlantic-10

The Atlantic-10 conference had three second-year head coaches in 2026, all three of which coach both the men’s and women’s programs.

Fordham has seen a slow decline under Tom Wilkens with the men dropping one place in 2025 to 7th and maintaining that position in 2026. The women have dropped one spot every year, finishing 3rd in 2024, 4th in 2025, and 5th in 2026.

The George Mason men have improved their finish each of the last three years under head coach Jamie Greenwood, while the women maintained their 5th place finish in 2025 before dropping three spots to finish 8th in 2026.

George Washington’s Chico Rego has seen the men’s team continue to win the conference title, taking their 3rd straight A-10 Championship in 2026. The women’s team dropped one spot after winning the title in 2024 and 2025 to finish 2nd overall, just under 30 points behind Richmond.

ASUN

Georgia Southern was the only team currently in the ASUN with a coaching change in 2024, hiring Morgan McCafferty. They stayed in the same spot, finishing 3rd in the conference in 2025. After the 2025 championships, the Sun Belt stopped sponsoring swimming and Georgia Southern moved to the ASUN.

In 2026, they finished 4th overall, dropping one spot. They scored 795.5 points to come in a little more than 400 points behind Queens (NC)’s 1217.5.

Big East

Lindsey Niegarth took over the Xavier program at the start of the 2025 season, and the women’s team has stayed relatively consistent in their conference finishes, jumping from 4th to 3rd in 2025 before dropping back to 4th in 2026.

The men’s team has dropped one spot every year, finishing 2nd in 2024, 3rd in 2025, and 4th in 2026.

Big West

On the other side of the country, the University of Hawaii men’s and women’s teams hired Steve Allnutt into the head coach position. They moved into the Big West for the 2025 season, the conference’s first year sponsoring swimming since 2010. The men finished 2nd and the women finished 3rd last year, dropping from their top spots in the MPSF.

In 2026, both teams took 1st overall, and they each sent swimmers to the NCAA Championships.

Horizon League

Cleveland State saw Trent Richardson take over the position two seasons ago. Last year, the men’s team maintained their position of 3rd and the women’s team jumped up a spot to also finish 3rd. This year, both teams slid with the men finishing 5th and the women finishing 4th

MAAC

Fairfield and Manhattan are both in the 2nd-year head coach club. Fairfield’s men’s and women’s teams have jumped up the conference rankings with both teams winning this year’s championships under coach Jake Lichter.

Manhattan’s men’s team has maintained their 9th place position all three years, while the women dropped from 9th-11th-12th under Brian Hansbury.

Siena University is a women’s only program in the MAAC, and Maggie Davenport took over the helm two seasons ago. They have also dropped one spot every year from 7th-8th-9th.

Missouri Valley

There were five Missouri Valley teams that saw new head coaches in 2024, and three of them also moved conferences in the same season. Most of the teams stayed relatively in-line with their 2024 performances, with only Illinois State seeing a drop with the women slipping from 4th to 7th during new head coach Riley Hilbrandt‘s first season. They maintained that position in 2025.

The Evansville men and women have both finished in the same spot for the last two seasons under Toby Wilcox.

The Miami-OH men won the conference in 2025 under Samantha Pitter, their first year in the Missouri Valley, before finishing 2nd this year.

Maiya Otsuka led UMASS men in their first year in the conference to a 4th place finish in 2026 after they finished 6th in the A-10 in 2025.

Mid-American

The Mid-American conference is a women’s only conference, and they have four coaches who are currently in their 2nd year. UMASS (Maiya Otsuka) recently moved into the conference from the A-10, but they maintained the same 7th place position regardless.

Bowling Green (Tanner Barton) and Miami-OH (Samantha Pitter) both dropped from their 2025 performances with Bowling Green moving from 6th-9th while Miami moved from 3rd-4th.

The Toledo women (Jacy Dyer) finished 8th for the 2nd year in a row.

MPSF

This is the last year that the MPSF will have five teams on this list, as California Baptist hired Jim Bossert to take over the head coach position in 2024 before cutting the program in January of this year. CBU swam their first year in the MPSF this season, moving from the WAC, finishing 4th for both the men and the women.

The UNLV men, led by Pat Ota, also came from the WAC, which they won in 2024 and 2025. In 2026, they finished 2nd in the MPSF behind the Air Force men.

It is not completely fair to look at the results for Incarnate Word because they competed last year in a nearly empty MPSF conference that had four women’s teams and two men’s teams. Tony Miller started leading the program after the 2024 season and the men’s team finished 9th this year while the women’s team finished 6th.

Summit League

The final two teams come from the Summit League. Eastern Illinois hired Scott Teeters to take over, and their men’s and women’s teams have stayed stable in their conference finishes. In 2024, both teams finished 8th. In 2025, they finished 7th, and in 2026, they finished 8th again.

St. Thomas also hired a new coach in 2024 with Matt Bos taking over the position. Both teams had a strong first season with the women jumping from 6th-4th and the men jumping from 6th-5th. They both slid back to their 2024 finish in 2026, finishing 6th overall.