Cody Muller takes over Pennridge football
Pennridge hired Cody Muller to replace the retired Jeff Hollenbach as the varsity football head coach Thursday, Feb. 8.
Muller, 27, teaches ninth grade social studies at Pennridge. When Hollenbach decided to retire, Muller jumped at the opportunity.
“I’ve been around the game of football since I was born,” Muller said. “As soon as it opened up I knew that’s where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.”
“He is an energetic young teacher in our school who loves to coach football and wants to invest in our students lives,” Pennridge Athletic Director David Babb said. “He has had an outstanding and positive experience playing and coaching at both the high school and collegiate level and is excited to give back as our head coach.”
Muller played football at Souderton Area High School, starring as a defensive end and tight end, before graduating in 2009. He went on to play defensive end at the University of New Hampshire.
Muller, who was an assistant coach at Saucon Valley for the last couple years, is taking over a Pennridge team that went 11-3 in 2017 and reached the District 1-6A semifinals.
“The community in general is very supportive of football and of the school,” Muller said. “Looking at our players and looking at our team, these kids are hungry. They are really hungry to work. They are really hungry to succeed. Just being around these guys in the weight room for the last two days now, they get after it. I love to see that. We have some great leaders.”
Muller is going to instill accountability into his players.
“I talked to the seniors (Tuesday) and we talked about accountability on the field, in the classroom and every aspect of life,” he said. “Lead by example. That group — I’m depending on them a lot. I expect a lot out of them. They know that and they want that. They want to be held accountable and they want to be leading this team, getting on the right page and taking this as far as we can.”
At Souderton, he played under head coach Ed Gallagher. Now, he’ll be coaching against Gallagher in the Suburban One League Continental Conference.
“I still have a pretty good relationship with coach Gallagher,” Muller said. “We’ve talked a little bit in the last couple days, even. He was funny, he even said, ‘I’ll help you anytime 358 of the 365 days.’ It’s going to be a special time to be able to play against coach Gallagher and some of the guys over there. Guys that I played with are coaching there now. That’s definitely going to be a special one.”
