Recruiting Areas
Defensive Line & Linebackers
Ben Hammer enters his second season as defensive coordinator at Oberlin College after being hired in March of 2023.
In his first season he led Brandon HAll to All-NCAC third-team honors. Oberlin ranked sixth in the NCAC in total defense, but was third in the league in red zone defense. Oberlin produced three of the top 11 tacklers in the league with Hall (third / 82), Hunter Green (eighth / 77), and Luca Friedman (11th / 71).
Before coming to Oberlin, Hammer spent the previous four seasons (2019-22) as a graduate assistant defensive line coach at Northwestern University, helping the Wildcats earn the Big Ten West Division Championship in 2020. During that season, the Wildcats led the Big Ten in scoring defense (15.9 ppg) and passing defense (195.9 ypg).
Prior to his time in Evanston, Illinois, Hammer was a graduate assistant coach at the University of Texas at El Paso where he worked with the team’s linebackers and special teams for the 2017 season.
From 2013-17 he held various coaching positions at Western New Mexico University (NCAA-DII), eventually holding the roles of assistant head coach, special teams coordinator, linebackers coach, and video coordinator at the time of his departure.
Hammer has additional international experience, coaching for numerous clubs in Germany with his last overseas stop being the head coach, defensive coordinator, and special teams coordinator of the Kirchdorf Wildcats from September 2011 through May of 2012.
Hammer graduated from Western New Mexico in the spring of 2017, with degrees in marketing and business management. He earned a graduate degree in leadership studies from UTEP in 2019 and earned a second master’s degree in sports administration from Northwestern in 2021.
