The Ed McCaffrey Era in Greeley is over.
McCaffrey, the former Broncos wide receiver who won a Class 5A state title with Valor Christian in 2018, is no longer the football coach at UNC, the university announced early Monday afternoon.
“This is never an easy decision,” UNC athletic director Darren Dunn said via a university news release. “We appreciate all the work, time and energy Coach McCaffrey has put into the program and we wish him the best in the future.”
UNC announced that it will conduct a “national search” for McCaffrey’s replacement.
The 54-year-old McCaffrey was 6-16 in 22 games as the coach at UNC, 4-12 in Big Sky play.
A member of two Super-Bowl winning teams with the Broncos, the former NFL wideout had been hired by UNC in December 2019 despite having no previous collegiate head coaching experience. McCaffrey produced back-to-back 3-8 seasons at UNC, which hasn’t posted a winning campaign since 2016, in the fall of 2021 and 2022.
The Bears completed this year’s season last Saturday with a 45-21 loss at Eastern Washington.
The 2020 season, which would have been McCaffrey’s first, was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. UNC opted out of playing a formal “makeup” spring football season in early 2021, delaying McCaffrey’s coaching debut until the fall of that year.