West Virginia University Athletics

Ryan Nehlen is the assistant wide receivers coach on the Mountaineer Football coaching staff.

He re-joined the Mountaineer football coaching staff in February 2024 as a senior offensive analyst and special assistant to the head coach after serving for two years as the tight ends coach at McNeese State in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

In his role at WVU, Nehlen organizes, implements and maintains all aspects of game analysis for the offensive coaching staff and manages the walk-on program. He charts/tracks statistics during practice and competition, analyzes game film and formulates game plans to assist the offensive coaching staff with game preparation. He organizes the practice schedule, manages the offensive graduate assistants and student coaches and supports the head coach with recruiting communication. He assists the head coach and staff with on-campus recruiting operations and oversees the administration of the offensive plan for the high school coaches clinic.

No stranger to WVU, Nehlen served as an offensive analyst for the football program from 2018 until July 2022. The Mountaineers played in bowl games in three of the four years that he worked on the staff.

Nehlen served as a graduate assistant coach for two years at Michigan. He worked with the offensive staff during the 2016 season and the defensive staff during the 2017 season. The Wolverines won 10 games during the 2016 season.

Prior to arriving in Ann Arbor, he had a short stint as an offensive graduate assistant at Marshall and was the receivers coach for Glenville State during the 2015 season. He worked as a graduate assistant coach at Akron during the 2014 season.

A two-year letterman at wide receiver at WVU, he contributed to successful teams that finished 10-3, won the Big East Championship and the Orange Bowl in 2011 and 7-6 and an appearance in the Pinstripe Bowl in 2012, the first as a member of the Big 12 Conference. He also was honored with All-Academic Team honors from the Big East (2011) and Big 12 (2012). He was the 2013 Louis Meisel Award recipient at WVU, given to the top graduating senior on the football team with the highest GPA and was a 2012 recipient of the Iron Mountaineer Award, given to the best all-around conditioned athlete.

Nehlen earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology from WVU in 2012. He and his wife, Micah, have two daughters, Penelope and Stella. He is the son of WVU football equipment manager Dan Nehlen and the grandson of Hall of Fame and former WVU head coach Don Nehlen.