San Diego State football coach Brady Hoke is retiring after the season
This will be Brady Hoke’s final season at San Diego State.
The school announced Monday morning that Hoke intends to step down as head coach at the end of the season. Hoke leads the Aztecs for the second time. He was the head coach for two years in 2009 and 2010 before getting the head coaching job at Michigan.
Hoke’s time in Ann Arbor came to an end after four seasons and he held several assistant coaching jobs before returning to San Diego State in 2019. He initially served as defensive line coach under Long, but became head coach a second time after Long resigned.
Things went well early on. After a 4-4 record during the COVID season, the Aztecs went 12-2 in 2021 and won the Mountain West’s West Division before falling in the conference title game. Since then, however, the program’s on-field performance has declined. SDSU went 7-6 last season and is currently 3-7 heading into the final two weeks of the regular season.
“I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished at San Diego State,” Hoke said. “I am grateful to all of the amazing student-athletes I have had the opportunity to work with and mold into men, husbands, fathers and pillars of the community. I will always cherish my time leading this program. I would like to do the same. I would like to thank the wonderful staff I have worked with and wish them all the best for the future.”
SDSU has been a consistent contender for the Mountain West title, starting with Hoke’s 2010 season through Long’s nine seasons on the job. The Aztecs played in 10 consecutive bowl games and won three Mountain West titles from 2010 to 2019. Before Hoke’s arrival, SDSU had not had a winning season or bowl game since 1998.
But after a 22-19 loss to Colorado State over the weekend, SDSU is guaranteed its first losing season since 2009. The Aztecs have lost seven of their last eight games and are 1-5 in Mountain West play. Since the end of the 2022 season, SDSU has lost nine of its last 12 games.
The Aztecs will conclude their season at San Jose State and then with a home game against Fresno State on November 25th. After that, Hoke plans to retire.
“I am very grateful for the work Brady Hoke has done with our San Diego State football program both on and off the field,” said SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker. “Brady set the standard when he first arrived at The Mesa in 2009 that we now adhere to. But it’s about more than wins and losses. Brady has created a culture, led our program through COVID, played two full seasons in Carson, including a 12-win campaign, and takes developing young men seriously both off and on the field. I wish Kelly, Laura and Brady a happy retirement.”
Brady Hoke is best known as Michigan’s head coach for four years
Hoke began his college coaching career in the early 1980s as a defensive assistant and had stints at Western Michigan, Toledo and Oregon State before transferring to Michigan in 1995. He spent eight seasons as an assistant with the Wolverines before getting the head coaching job at Ball State, his alma mater, in 2003.
Hoke inherited a rebuild at Ball State, but took the program to its first bowl game since 1996 in 2007 and then led the Cardinals to a 12-0 regular season in 2008. Ball State lost in the MAC title game and then Hoke went to win the SDSU job. He went 4-8 in his first year at SDSU and led the team to a 9-4 record in his second year before landing the big job at Michigan, where he succeeded Rich Rodriguez.
The Wolverines went 11-2 and won the Sugar Bowl in his first season, earning them the Hoke Big Ten Coach of the Year award. However, he was unable to repeat this success in the future. Michigan posted an 8-5 record in 2012, a 7-6 record in 2013 and then Hoke was fired after a 5-7 record in 2014. Overall, he had a 31-20 record at Michigan with an 18-14 record in Big Ten play.
In his career, Hoke has a 104-90 record as an FBS head coach and has two games remaining.