Former West Virginia and Houston head coach Dana Holgorsen is remaining with the Nebraska Cornhuskers as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Nebraska announced Monday it signed Holgorsen to a two-year, $2.4 million contract to officially move into the OC role on head coach Matt Rhule’s staff. He initially joined the Cornhuskers in November as an offensive consultant before he called plays as a coordinator for the final three games of the campaign.

“We are excited that Dana Holgorsen has agreed to be our offensive coordinator moving forward,” Rhule said. “Dana is one of the elite offensive minds in football, and the progress we made in our final three games provides a glimpse of the potential of our offense under his direction. We look forward to Dana leading our offense into the bowl game and building for the 2025 season.”

While Nebraska went just 1-2 in those three games with losses against USC and Iowa, its offense did impress in the Nov. 23 win over Wisconsin.

The Cornhuskers exploded for 44 points as quarterback Dylan Raiola threw for 293 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions while running back Emmett Johnson ran for 113 yards. Running back Dante Dowdell scored three times on the ground as well.

If that was a hint of what’s to come for Nebraska with Holgorsen as its offensive coordinator, perhaps it can return to the program’s past standards.

Despite a long history of success in the Big 12 and Big 8, things have mostly been disappointing since switching to the Big Ten prior to the 2011 season. The Cornhuskers have eight losing seasons since the move and have won double-digit games just once.

They also haven’t finished with a winning record since 2016.

Rhule was brought in before the 2023 season to change that, and this is a major addition to his staff. After all, Holgorsen was the head coach of West Virginia for eight seasons from 2011 to 2018 and then led Houston for five seasons from 2019 to 2023.

He went 92-69 overall during those 13 years and led his teams to 10 bowl games.

Holgorsen also has plenty of experience as an offensive coordinator for Texas Tech (2005-07), Houston (2008-09) and Oklahoma State (2010). Nebraska’s announcement noted those offenses had an average national finish of second in passing, third in total offense and sixth in scoring offense.

There will also be defensive changes for the Cornhuskers, as ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Monday that defensive coordinator Tony White is moving to the same role at Florida State.