Well, that certainly didn’t take long.
Just hours after LSU announced Les Miles would remain their head coach after receiving serious overtures from Michigan, and after a former assistant at the school had reportedly become the next target, the Wolverines have officially found their next coach.
According to a press release, Michigan announced that San Diego State’s Brady Hoke has been tabbed to replace Rich Rodriguez and becomes the school’s 19th head coach.
“We are pleased to announce the hiring of Brady,” said athletic director David Brandon. “He is a terrific coach and will be a great ambassador and leader for our football program. We look forward to having him build a championship program on the field and in the classroom.”
After expressing interest in Jim Harbaugh and later Miles, Brandon appears to have turned his full attention to Hoke within the past 24 hours and consummated a deal rather quickly.
Hoke has spent the past eight seasons as a head coach, the last two at SDSU and, prior to that, six seasons at Ball State. Before taking over his own programs, he was an assistant an assistant at Michigan from 1995-2002.
Let me add this: Hoke may not be a “name” like Harbaugh or Miles, but he is a tremendous football coach and an excellent hire for a football program that desperately needed one. It may have looked shaky and haphazard from the outside, but Brandon nailed this one. Watch, you’ll see.
And what of the losing record (47-50) as a head coach? Gene Chizik was sub-.500 before going to Auburn. How’d that turn out?