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The Nebraska football program and Husker Athletics mourns the loss of legendary football assistant coach George Darlington. The long-time Husker assistant who was part of three national championship teams passed away in Lincoln on Sunday morning at the age of 87.
Darlington was a Nebraska assistant coach for 30 seasons from 1973 to 2002, serving as an assistant longer than any coach in the history of Cornhusker football. During his 30-year tenure, Nebraska posted a 304-65-3 record, leading the nation in wins and winning percentage during that span. Darlington helped the Huskers to three national championship, 14 conference titles and 21 years where Nebraska finished with a top 10 national ranking. The Huskers also played in a bowl game in each of Darlington’s 30 seasons on staff.
Born in West Virginia, Darlington played college football at Rutgers in the 1950s before earning two degrees at Stanford. He began his coaching career at Johnson Regional High School in New Jersy in 1962 and was coaching at San Jose State before Tom Osborne hired Darlington as the defensive ends coach for Osborne’s first season as Nebraska’s head coach in 1973. Darlington coached defensive ends for 13 seasons until becoming the defensive backs coach in 1986. He was the only assistant who was on staff for the entirety of Osborne’s 25 seasons as head coach. Darlington then went on to spend five seasons coaching defensive backs under Frank Solich.
Following his Nebraska career, Darlington served as an assistant coach at Marshall, Louisiana Tech, Southeast Missouri State and San Diego, before retiring in 2010.
Beyond his Husker football coaching success, Darlington impacted Nebraska for decades by teaching a Football 101 class, both during his coaching career and continuing after retirement. Darlington wrote a 150-page “Football 101” textbook in the 1990s and taught students on the basics of offense, defense, special teams, officials signals, playing rules and much more. Darlington also remained active in recent years as a regular observer at Husker football practices and was a fixture in the Memorial Stadium press box on game days.