A three-year starter and team captain at Kansas State, Koenning was the recipient of the Paul Coffman Award, presented to the Wildcat who displays the most outstanding leadership. Koenning was third on the team with 93 total tackles as a senior. After his collegiate career, he played two seasons for the Oklahoma Outlaws of the United States Football League.
Coaching career
Koenning started his college career as an assistant coach for the University of Memphis before moving on to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Wyoming. In 2000, he was promoted to head coach of the Cowboys, but was fired following the 2002 season after posting a record of 5–29. After Wayne Bolt left Troy University following the 2002 season, Koenning was hired by Larry Blakeny as his replacement where Koenning led Troy to a Top-10 ranked defense in 2004. In 2005 Koenning became defensive coordinator for the Clemson Tigers. Clemson ranked in the top 25 for scoring defense and total defense during his tenure. It was ninth in total defensive in 2007. Koenning resigned his position on December 2, 2008. Koenning's defense was the highlight of the Clemson 2008 season. He was hired at Kansas State by head coach Bill Snyder on December 8, 2008 to be assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator at his alma mater. The K-state defense improved from 118 to 38 under Koenning. On December 18, 2009, Ron Zook announced he hired Koenning as the defensive coordinator for the University of Illinois. He improved the Illini defense from 91st in the country in 2009, to 38th in 2010, and 7th in 2011. Illinois gave up just 291.8 yards per game and ranked fourth in the nation in pass defense, fifth in tackles for loss and ninth in sacks. After Zook was fired from Illinois at the end of the regular season, Illinois made Koenning the interim head coach for bowl game against UCLA in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. After Koenning led the Illini to a win in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, he was the hired by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. In his first season at North Carolina, his defense finished third in the nation in tackles for loss with more than eight per game. The defense that year only allowed a little over 25 points per game. In 2013, North Carolina improved dramatically over the second half of the season, securing wins in six of its last seven contests. In five of those games, North Carolina held its opponents to less than 20 points, including the 39–17 win over Cincinnati in the Belk Bowl. For the entire 2013 season, North Carolina allowed 24.3 points per game, which gave them the 48th-ranked scoring defense. After the 2014 regular season, Koenning was dismissed from the North Carolina program. He was then hired by Troy again on December 17, 2014 by new head coach Neal Brown to be the defensive coordinator once again for the Trojans. On January 10th, 2019, Koenning was named the defensive coordinator at West Virginia University by head coach Neal Brown. On June 23, 2020, he was placed on administrative leave following allegations of mistreatment by his players. He was fired about a month later.
