Bullish Bear

Former Baylor Football letterman Maurice “Mo” Linguist, B.A. ’06, M.S.Ed. ’07, was named football head coach at the State University of New York at Buffalo in early May. It is Linguist’s first head coaching job after 14 seasons as an assistant coach at the collegiate and professional levels. He inherits a Buffalo Bulls program that played in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Championship Game in two of the last three seasons and has reached a bowl game in three consecutive seasons.

Linguist, a graduate of Mesquite [Texas] High School, appeared in 42 games with 24 starts at Baylor over four seasons (2003-06). He earned All-Big 12 Conference and Baylor Defensive MVP honors as a senior after recording 71 tackles, including 7.5 for loss and one sack, with two forced fumbles.

Considered one of the top young minds in college football, Linguist, 37, is the fourth-youngest head coach in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).

Linguist was an assistant at Buffalo during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Other stops on his résumé include Iowa State University (2014-15), Mississippi State University (2016), the University of Minnesota (2017) and Texas A&M University (2018-19). Linguist coached cornerbacks for the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys last season and was named co-defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Baylor in 2007.

Linguist is not the first former Baylor football player to become a college football head coach; however, he is the only one among the current 130 FBS head coaches.