Chris Ostrowsky joined Tony Reno’s staff in August 2021 as an offensive assistant and was promoted to offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in March 2023 after serving as pass game coordinator and wide receivers coach in 2022. During his tenure, the Bulldogs have won two Ivy League championships (2022, 2023).
Ostrowsky helped mentor quarterback Nolan Grooms, a two-time Asa S. Bushnell Cup winner as Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year. Grooms graduated second all-time at Yale in touchdown passes (52), second in total offense (6,929 yards), fifth in career passing yards (5,136), and sixth in completions (407). In Ostrowsky’s first season on staff, six Bulldogs earned All-Ivy honors on offense, including First Team tight end JJ Howland, who later signed as a free agent with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Howland and wide receiver Melvin Rouse II were also selected to the 2022 Tropical Bowl at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
In 2022, Ostrowsky helped lead Yale to the Ivy League’s top-scoring offense (30.3 points per game) and total offense (412.6 yards per game), securing an outright league championship. The 2023 team repeated as Ivy champions, posting the second-highest scoring offense in the league.
Before Yale, Ostrowsky spent one season as a senior offensive advisor at Georgia Tech, where the Yellow Jackets earned wins over Miami and NC State. He previously served as offensive coordinator at Central Michigan (2017–18), coaching quarterback Shane Morris to 27 touchdowns and 3,237 passing yards in 2017 — second and seventh in school history, respectively — and mentoring tight end Tyler Conklin, now with the New York Jets.
Ostrowsky spent five seasons as head coach at Northern Michigan (2012–16), where his high-powered offense averaged 31.7 points per game over his final two seasons and set 28 school records, including every single-season passing record in program history. He also served as Northern Michigan’s offensive coordinator (2010-11), quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator at Northeastern (2007-09), assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Widener University (2004–06), and offensive coordinator at Washington and Lee (2002-04).
He began his coaching career at East Side High School in Newark, N.J. (1997-2001), earning Newark Star-Ledger High School Coach of the Year honors in 1998 after turning around a program that had lost 18 consecutive games. A respected speaker, Ostrowsky has presented clinics nationwide on the spread offense and red-zone strategies.
A native of Roselle Park, N.J., Ostrowsky played quarterback at Jersey City State College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1993. He was inducted into the Essex County Football Hall of Fame in 2022. He and his wife, Jennifer, have two sons, Jackson and Joseph, and a daughter, Hope.
