NDSU Introduces Football Coaching Staff

The Bison added four coaches on Thursday

FARGO, N.D. (NDSU Athletics) — North Dakota State head football coach Matt Entz announced the addition of two defensive and two offensive assistant coaches to the Bison staff Thursday, Jan. 10.

David Braun has been named NDSU’s defensive coordinator and safeties coach, Grant Olson is the linebackers coach, AJ Blazek is the offensive line coach, and Noah Pauley will be the wide receivers coach.

Braun comes to NDSU after two seasons at Northern Iowa, where he was the defensive line coach and run game coordinator in 2017 and the outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator in 2018. He is a graduate of Winona State, where he played defensive line for Entz from 2004-07 and joined him on staff as a graduate assistant for two years.

Braun was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Culver-Stockton in 2010, returned to Winona State for four years as the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach from 2011-14, and moved to the FCS level as the defensive line coach at UC Davis for two seasons from 2015-16.

Olson, who played linebacker on three national championship teams for NDSU from 2010-13, returns to his alma mater after two seasons as the linebackers coach at Indiana State. Olson was a student assistant coach with Entz at NDSU in 2014 before spending the 2015-16 seasons as a graduate assistant on Craig Bohl’s staff at Wyoming.

Blazek spent the past three seasons at Rutgers as the offensive line coach including two years as the assistant head coach. He coached the offensive line at Western Illinois from 2013-15 and Winona State from 2009-12, spending one year with Entz on each of those staffs. Blazek was an All-Big Ten center at Iowa, where he was a student assistant and graduate assistant for four seasons before moving on to Fort Hays State from 2005-08.

Pauley joins the Bison after three seasons as the offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Minnesota-Duluth, where he was a four-year starter for the Bulldogs as a player from 2007-10. He played on teams that went 45-8 and won two Division II national championships before joining the staff as a graduate assistant in 2013.