Entering the 2025 season, Gregg Horner is in his 32nd year with the Valley City State University football program, once again serving as Assistant Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator. He was named the NAIA Assistant Coach of the Year in 2012, an honor that recognizes excellence in coaching, student-athlete success, community involvement, and leadership within the profession.
Horner has been a key figure in one of the most successful eras of Viking Football. He has helped lead VCSU to seven conference championships and five NAIA national playoff appearances. Since taking over as defensive coordinator in 1996, his defenses have set more than 20 individual or team school records while regularly ranking among the NAIA’s top defensive units.
His defense was instrumental in VCSU’s 8–2 season in 2021, ranking as high as No. 15 nationally while setting a school record with 21 interceptions and allowing just 12.9 points per game — the program’s lowest mark since 1996. Multiple players earned national recognition during his tenure, including Riley Gerhardt, Marshaun Jones, Nicholas McBeain, Sal Avila, and Jahidi West, who led the nation with eight interceptions in 2021.
Horner’s defenses have consistently excelled in national rankings:
• Top-10 scoring defense in 2014 and 2015
• Top-15 total defense and passing defense in 2016 and 2018
• Top-25 national scoring defense multiple seasons
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Earlier in his career, Horner played a major role in four straight conference championships from 2011–14, five NAIA playoff berths, and several runs in which VCSU ranked as one of the top defenses in the NAIA.
A Fargo, N.D. native, Horner graduated from VCSU in 1990. He was a member of the 1988 NDCAC Championship and NAIA Playoff team and served as VCSU Student Senate President in 1989. He began his coaching career as a student assistant under former Viking head coach Jim Dew.
Horner spent two years coaching at Gardner-Edgerton High School (Kan.) before earning his master’s degree while serving as a graduate assistant at South Dakota State University from 1992–94. He returned to Valley City State in 1994 and has been a foundational leader of the program ever since.
In addition to his football responsibilities, Horner is a lecturer in the Health & Physical Education Department at VCSU. He and his wife, Kathleen, have two children: Iain and Maren.
