Kennedy, who coached wide receivers for much of his career including at Montana, has deep ties to Northern Colorado. He was born in Denver and raised in Boulder, and he graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.\n<\/p>\n
In a career that\u2019s taken him across the country, Kennedy is now putting down roots in Montana. He said late last month he expected to soon move out of the Hauck home, while settling into a new job he sees as his last job.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got here so late, and there really wasn\u2019t time to find a place because we were meeting all the time trying to catch me up,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd then training camp started and then the season. They (the Haucks) were really gracious. I think I\u2019m low maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, how does a guy who played high school football in Boulder and was later a backup quarterback for the then-Division II UNC Bears end up at Montana, one of the most prominent Football Championship Subdivision programs in college football?<\/p>\n
Kennedy, who lived on Elder Avenue in north Boulder, said in his introductory news conference the Montana head coach job is \u201cone of the premier, if not the premier job, I think, in college football.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey,\u201d Kennedy said, adding he interviewed for four head coaching jobs in the past, declining two offers and finishing as a runner-up on two others. \u201cYeah, it was a long road, but I got really lucky along the way, too, being around some great people.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GRE-Z-UNCBobbyKennedyMontanaFootball4.jpg\")
New University of Montana head football coach Bobby Kennedy, right, shakes hands with Grizzlies quarterback Gage Sliter on Kennedy’s first day on the job in early February. Kennedy, 59, was named Grizzlies head coach to replace Bobby Hauck, who retired after 15 seasons. Kennedy is from Boulder and he played football at Boulder High School and at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. The job is Kennedy’s first as a head coach in a 35-year career as a college coach. (Courtesy\/University of Montana, Marley Barboeisel).
\nAn early interest<\/p>\n
Kennedy was adopted at the age of 1 as the youngest of eight children by Manert and Grace Kennedy. Manert was a biology professor and administrator at CU Boulder<\/a>. He died in 2024. Grace<\/a> died in 2010. Three of Kennedy\u2019s siblings still live in the Boulder area.<\/p>\n Manert played football at Butler University after serving with the U.S. Marines in the Korean War. Bobby said his own first exposure to football came from Manert, who told Bobby the family put a football in the boy\u2019s crib when they brought him home.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s his story,\u201d Bobby said, adding he was swayed into the sport by the Denver Broncos and CU Buffs.<\/p>\n One of his father\u2019s former coaches at Butler was a scout for the Broncos, and the Kennedys went to Greeley for training camps at UNC. Bobby played youth football in Boulder and for Casey Middle School<\/a> before enrolling at Boulder High School. He was the junior varsity starting quarterback as a high school sophomore.\n<\/p>\n The summer between his sophomore and junior years, he attended the Mile High Football Camp, which was a well-known camp founded and run by Colorado coaching legend Sam Pagano<\/a> for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n Kennedy never attended a football camp before going to the Mile High Camp. He was named the camp\u2019s most valuable player, and earned attention back at Boulder High.\n<\/p>\n Pagano<\/a> played at the University of Denver, had a tryout with the Broncos and later built Fairview High in Boulder into a state power. Fairview is Boulder High\u2019s rival.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why I was surprised I won (MVP),\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cSam Pagano was awesome too. He was really supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n A network of connections<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s college coaching bosses, colleagues, friends or acquaintances reads like a who\u2019s who of the sport: Bill McCartney at the University of Colorado, Lou Tepper at the University of Illinois, Jim Caldwell and Joe Paterno at Penn State, David Shaw at Stanford and Mack Brown at Texas.<\/p>\n Kennedy, who wanted to play for CU, spent two years as the Buffs\u2019 wide receivers coach under Jon Embree from 2011-12. Kennedy also previously won a national title at Texas<\/a> in 2005 coaching wide receivers for Brown. His first college job was as a graduate assistant at Illinois in the early 1990s under Tepper.<\/p>\n Kennedy landed that first job through\u00a0Dave Ramsey, who went on to have a successful run<\/a> as the Boulder High School head football coach into the 1990s. In 1992, Ramsey led Boulder High<\/a> to a state title.<\/p>\n Ramsey, now 72 and retired, started at Boulder High in 1984, which was Kennedy\u2019s senior year. Five years later, Ramsey brought Kennedy in for his first coaching job fresh out of UNC.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned so much from Coach Ramsey, and he\u2019s always been one of my heroes,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cHe was really fun to be around, and he taught kids the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy said Ramsey opened his eyes to the amount of work that goes into coaching.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a college kid and used to take Sundays off,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n Ramsey had Kennedy pegged as a coach when Kennedy was in high school. Ramsey said Kennedy had a gift for seeing the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thrilled he\u2019s getting this opportunity at this time in his career,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cThis is a special guy who knows how to communicate, how to get the best out of people. His attention to detail and knowledge of the game. I\u2019m thrilled Montana thinks the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Before joining Boulder High as the offensive coordinator, Ramsey spent the previous few years working with quarterbacks on Bob Blasi\u2019s staff at UNC.<\/p>\n Blasi<\/a>, who died in 2023, is the winningest football coach in UNC history. He won 107 games in 19 seasons from 1966-84. Blasi\u2019s .601 winning percentage is second in school history to Joe Glenn<\/a>, who was the head coach when UNC won consecutive NCAA Division II titles in 1996-97.\n<\/p>\n \u2018One of the good guys\u2019: Former UNC football coach Bob Blasi dies at 93<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Glenn was Kennedy\u2019s quarterback coach at UNC, and later started the UNC-to-Montana connection. Glenn became the head coach at UNC in 1989, leading the Bears to winning records in all 11 seasons. He left after the 1999 season for Montana where he coached for three years, winning the Division I-AA national title in 2001<\/a>.<\/p>\n Glenn and other former UNC coaches such as Kay Dalton<\/a> and Bob Stitt rank Kennedy\u2019s memory as influential. Dalton<\/a> was the offensive coordinator under Glenn and became head coach in 2000. Stitt was a graduate assistant at UNC in 1989. He was later the head coach at Montana before Hauck returned for his second stint.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many really good people and good coaches,\u201d Kennedy said of UNC. \u201cI always thought I\u2019d be a better coach than a player.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramsey recommended UNC to Kennedy because Ramsey saw the program as a “tremendous fit.” Ramsey said Kennedy was a \u201cvery good quarterback\u201d in high school.\n<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a cerebral guy,\u201d former UNC linebacker and defensive end Jed Roberts<\/a> said of Kennedy, who arrived in Greeley in the same freshman class in 1985. \u201cHe knew a lot about everything and always had interesting things to say about everything. He was very aware of everything going on around him.\u201d At UNC, Kennedy played behind Loren Snyder<\/a> and Mark Sedinger, who were two of the best quarterbacks to come out of the program, Roberts said.<\/p>\n Kennedy suffered a shoulder injury in his first season at UNC and had an operation to repair a rotator cuff. By the time he returned ready to play, other players were ahead of him on the depth chart. One of Kennedy\u2019s regrets now is he didn\u2019t give more to the experience as a college football player.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thing,\u201d he said. \u201cTraining, social life. I mean, I had a really good time in college. And loved UNC. But I think if I really would\u2019ve trained a little harder, been a little bit more serious about football, then I might\u2019ve had a better career.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Hauck asked Kennedy to come up to Missoula last year because the Grizzlies needed a wide receivers coach. The men worked together at the University of Washington in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s wife, LaShonda, teaches at Menlo College<\/a> in Atherton, California, near San Francisco and Palo Alto. The couple has a home in the Bay Area, and they were having dinner when Hauck called. Kennedy was free and enjoying a break after being fired from his previous job as the wide receivers coach at Rice.\n<\/p>\n Kennedy said his wife encouraged him to resume the career at Montana, feeling as if he benefited from the time away from football. Kennedy packed his car a few days later and went to Missoula.<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GRE-Z-UNCBobbyKennedyMontanaFootball3.jpg\")
New University of Montana head football coach Bobby Kennedy speaks at an introductory news conference Feb. 5, 2026 in Missoula, Montana. Kennedy, 59, is from Boulder, Colorado. He played football at Boulder High School and then at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley before beginning his coaching career. The Montana job is Kennedy’s first as a head coach. (Courtesy\/University of Montana, Ryan Brennecke).<\/p>\n
\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GRE-Z-UNCBobbyKennedyMontanaFootball9.jpg\")
The Mirror, the University of Northern Colorado student newspaper, features backup football quarterback Bobby Kennedy in an October 1987 story. Kennedy, now 59 and a UNC graduate, was hired in early February as the head coach at Montana, a UNC rival in the Big Sky Conference. Kennedy was born in Denver and raised in Boulder where he played football at Boulder High School. (Courtesy\/University of Northern Colorado Archives).\n<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GRE-Z-UNCBobbyKennedyMontanaFootball6.jpg\")
New University of Montana head football coach Bobby Kennedy walks up stairs at the university on his first day on the job in February 2026. Kennedy, 59, was hired after one year in the program to replace longtime head coach Bobby Hauck. Kennedy is from Boulder, Colorado, he played football at Boulder High School and at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley before starting his coaching career. The Montana job is Kennedy’s first as a head coach. (Courtesy\/University of Montana, Tommy Martino).<\/p>\n