A veteran defensive coordinator with a healthy amount of Big 12 experience, Clint Bowen was officially introduced as UNA's new defensive coordinator on January 28, 2026.
Bowen comes over from Oklahoma State, where he was the interim defensive coordinator for 2025. He previously served as the head coach at Lawrence High School in Kansas from 2021-24.
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In fact, most of Bowen's football career has been spent in Lawrence — including a few years with Dearmon while he was at Kansas as the offensive coordinator. Bowen played defensive back at Kansas from 1991-94 and went on to coach two decades over multiple stints with the Jayhawks in various roles.
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"Clint Bowen is one of the smartest defensive minds I have been around in football," said Dearmon. "The experience and knowledge he will bring to our staff will be of great benefit. He has been a coordinator in the Big 12 on multiple occasions and has learned how to adapt his defense to best fit his players."
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His career started in 1996 as a graduate assistant at Kansas. He left for the same position at Minnesota in 1997 before returning to Kansas for two more seasons. He was then elevated to special teams from 2001-05 while coaching various position groups. In 2006, he was named co-defensive coordinator then was promoted to defensive coordinator from 2008-09.
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Bowen became the defensive coordinator for Western Kentucky in 2010 and North Texas in 2011. His journey brought him back to Kansas in 2012, where he spend the next eight seasons in various roles. He was the defensive coordinator and interim head coach in 2014, then became assistant head coach and defensive coordinator again from 2015-18.
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He returned to North Texas in 2020 as the DC for one season, then took the high school gig in Lawrence for the next four seasons. He coached the team to a 26-15 record over that span while coaching both of his sons, Baylor and Banks. Banks is the younger son and committed to UNA to play quarterback earlier this month.
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Bowen left the high school ranks for a position at Oklahoma State, where he was a quality control coach before being tabbed the interim defensive coordinator. Oklahoma State went from allowing 38.0 PPG to rank among the worst teams in FBS to allowing just 17.0 PPG over the final three weeks of the season once Bowen was moved to interim DC — ranking 25th.
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"I'm thankful to Coach Dearmon for the opportunity to be a part of UNA football as the defensive coordinator," said Bowen. "I look forward to building relationships with our players and the UNA community. Work has already started building a defense that gets the UNA fans excited."
