Joe Forchtner has spent most of his coaching career at NMMI, starting as the linebackers/defensive line coach in July 2006 and moving up to the head coaching position in January 2012.

In between, he served as defensive coordinator from 2010-2011. He was also a Troop Leadership Advisor in 2006-2007, assistant director of Physical Performance and Development from 2008-2010 and director of the PPD in 2011, and placement coordinator in 2010.

In 2019 the Bronco football team made it to the championship game of the Southwestern Junior College Football Conference after only four seasons in the league.

In 2015, NMMI became one of only four teams in the former Western States Football League to make the conference playoffs two of its first three years. The playoff structure began in 2013. No team in the league has made the playoffs all three years.

NMMI finished tied for second place in the conference in 2015, tied for the highest finish in more than 50 years. The Broncos sent 41 players at four-year schools in 2015, a school record: 18 Division I, 14 Division II, six Division III/NAIA and three to Canadian universities. 

During the 2013 season, it was the first time since 1969 that NMMI had three consecutive seasons over .500, and it also marked the third bowl game appearance for NMMI in five years (El Toro Bowl, 2013; Heart of Texas Bowl, 2011; Salt City Bowl, 2009).  Previously, NMMI had not been to a bowl game since 1999.

Prior to coming to NMMI, Forchtner was the assistant head coach/defensive coordinator/strength and conditioning coach at Mount Allison University from 2005-2006; safeties coach at Delta State University from 2003-2004, where helped the team to its third best record in school history; defensive tackles coach at Delta State from 2002-2003; and special teams coordinator/defensive line coach at Haskell University from 2001-2002.

Forchtner has coached numerous players who went on to further their careers in college and beyond, including one player drafted by the NFL and 10 players signed by the CFL, four of whom are still playing.

He coached one player who played in the annual Blue-Gray All-Star Game; signed three of the school’s top five recruits in 2004, as rated by Go Green Magazine.  One of those players went on to become the Gulf South Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year and first team All-American in 2006 and the all-time NCAA Division II sack leader in 2007.

Forchtner recruited and coached the player who tied the NAIA single-season sack record with 23; coached the linebacker who was third in the NJCAA in tackles in 2007; has been the position coach for one first-team All-American, three second team All-Americans, four honorable mention All-Americans; one second-team All-Canadian player; 19 first-team All-Conference players; and sixteen second-team All-Conference players. He coached one Russ Jackson Award Winner (Canada’s scholar-athlete of the year) and has placed between 20-31 players at four-year schools every year since 2006.

During his time at NMMI, players have come from 24 states, five countries and two U.S. territories.

Forchtner went to Elkhorn High School  in Elkhorn, Nebraska, graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor's in history in 2001, and Delta State University with an master's of education in physical education in 2004.

He’s married to Bronco volleyball coach Shelby Forchtner and has three children, Macy, Jay and Bentley.