College football: Brady Hoke returning to familiar job

Credit: Michael Reaves

Credit: Michael Reaves

Brady Hoke is back among the ranks of college football head coaches.

The Kettering native best known for four rocky seasons at Michigan at the beginning of the last decade was named the leader of the San Diego State program Wednesday afternoon.

This will be Hoke’s second stint as head coach of the Aztecs, and he is replacing Rocky long, the man who replaced him in 2011 when Hoke was named head coach at Michigan.

>>FLASHBACK: When Michigan hired Hoke

The 61-year-old Hoke was a standout player at Fairmont East and then Ball State before beginning a coaching career that has spanned four decades.

Hoke was 13-12 in his first stint as coach of the Aztecs in 2009-10 before returning to Ann Arbor, where he was an assistant coach from 1995-2002.

He went 11-2, beat Ohio State, won the Sugar Bowl and was named national coach of the year in his first season at Michigan, but it went downhill from there.

Hoke’s second Michigan team went 8-5 followed by a 7-6 season and a 5-7 campaign that ended with his firing.

>>RELATED: Why Michigan can’t beat Ohio State anymore 

In 2017, he served as defensive coordinator at Oregon followed by a season as defensive line coach and then interim head coach at Tennessee.

He coached the defensive line for the Carolina Panthers in 2018 before taking the same position at SDSU prior to last season.

Long retired Wednesday following a nine-year tenure at SDSU in which he won 81 games and three Mountain West championships.

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