The Northern Iowa Panthers will have one of their more famous former football players on the sidelines this fall. Scranton’s Bryce Paup will coach linebackers for head coach Mark Farley, it was announced earlier this week. Paup graduated from Scranton High School in 1986 where he went virtually unrecruited by colleges. He found a home in Cedar Falls and starred at linebacker for the Panthers before being drafted by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers in 1990. Paup played for Green Bay, Buffalo, Jacksonville, and Minnesota during an 11-year NFL career, in which he was named to All-Pro and Pro-Bowl teams. He was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the year with the Buffalo Bills.

He begins his duties with the Panthers with the start of spring practice. Paup coached high school football in Wisconsin the past six seasons heading the Green Bay Southwest program. His teams went 43-21 and his 2011 and ’12 teams each won 10 games.

Bryce and his wife, Denise, the former Denise Dunlop of Jefferson, have six children. His parents, Byron and Harriet, live north of Scranton, and a brother, Brad, and Brad’s wife, Sharla, live in Jefferson. Another brother, Marty, lives in Alta, Iowa.