Matt Walker, who led the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on a stunning program turnaround that culminated with the NCAA Division III national championship, has resigned to take the head coaching job at Drake.
Walker, the D3football.com Coach of the Year in 2025, had been at River Falls for 15 seasons, overseeing a rise from one of the weakest programs in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference into an offensive powerhouse. The Falcons won 14 games in 2025, their first WIAC title since 1985, their first playoff berth since 1996 and then the first national title in school history.
Jake Wissing was named River Falls’ interim head coach. Wissing has served as defensive coordinator the past five years and had spent nine seasons as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach before that.
Drake, in Des Moines, Iowa, is an Football Championship Subdivision school in the Pioneer Football League. Head coach Joe Woodley, after leading the program to its third consecutive league title and berth in the FCS playoffs, resigned Feb. 9, taking an assistant-coach position at Rutgers. The year before that, head coach Todd Stepsis stepped down to become head coach at Northern Iowa. The Bulldogs have fallen in the first round of the FCS postseason each of the past three years.
Thanks to an offensive reinvention, River Falls has gone 44-13 since 2021, ranking among the top five Division III offenses in total offense three seasons. Walker’s teams won just three games in his first three seasons, then won no more than four games in any season through 2019. But the school’s patience was rewarded with a nine-win season in 2021 as the ascent began.
Walker, 48, previously coached in the Pioneer League, as an offensive assistant at Butler in 2010. He had also previously coached running backs and receivers at his alma mater, DePauw, in Indiana, where he also was the school’s baseball coach.
“I’m not sure there are words to properly explain how much I love River Falls and how much I appreciate everything it has given me and my family,” Walker said in a UWRF release. “I’ve given everything I had to UWRF and feel good about leaving it in a better place than we found it. None of this could have happened without great administrative leadership, my incredible coaching staff, and obviously our student-athletes. We have truly created a family here.”
After leading UW-Whitewater to a sixth Division III national championship in 2014, head coach Lance Leipold took a job at Buffalo (an FBS school) and stayed there until 2020; he’s now head coach at Kansas.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: River Falls football coach takes Drake job after national title
Reporting by JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
