Upper Iowa University named Mike Knoll as its Head Football Coach on Feb. 28, 2005. Knoll spent the 2004 season as the Special Teams Coordinator/Defensive Line Coach at Bacone College in Muskogee, Okla. He was named Defensive Coordinator/Assistant Head Coach at Bacone earlier in 2005.

This is Knoll's second collegiate head football coaching job. He was the Head Coach at New Mexico State University from 1986-89 after spending two seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Miami. Knoll was the Defensive Backfield Coach in 1984 and the Linebacker Coach in 1985 for the Hurricanes.

Knoll has several connections to Iowa, having been born and raised in the state. He attended Marshalltown High School and Marshalltown Community College, and was the Defensive Coordinator at Iowa State University in 1983.

Knoll began his coaching career as the Linebacker Coach at Missouri Western State College in 1975. He coached outside linebackers at New Mexico State in 1978 before being named Defensive Line Coach at the University of Tulsa in 1979. Knoll was Defensive Coordinator at Tulsa from 1980-82 before moving to Iowa State in 1983.

After his stint as the head coach at New Mexico State, Knoll served as the Defensive Coordinator at Northwestern University and again at the University of Tulsa before resuming his career at Bacone in 2004.

In his career, Knoll has coached in the Mineral Water (Excelsior Springs, Mo.), Boot Hill (Dodge City, Kan.), Orange (Miami, Fla.), Fiesta (Phoenix, Ariz.) and Sugar (New Orleans, La.) Bowls.

A quarterback in high school, Knoll continued his playing career as an outside linebacker in college. He earned his B.S. in Education from Missouri Western State and his M.S. in Educational Management and Development from New Mexico State.