Fresno State football coaching job profile: How will Bulldogs replace Jeff Tedford? (2024)

Fresno State will need a new head coach. Jeff Tedford stepped down from his alma mater in July, the second time he has left the job due to health issues.

Tedford went 45-22 in five seasons over two stints, winning at least nine games four times with two Mountain West championships. It was a remarkable run only broken up by the health concerns.

The program had just two coaches from 1980 to 2011, but this will now be its fourth coaching search since 2017. Two of those four searches ended with Tedford. The other ended with Kalen DeBoer, whose success in Fresno propelled him to the Washington and then Alabama head jobs within a few years.

So where could the Fresno State search go after the Bulldogs play out this season under interim coach Tim Skipper? Here are the factors and potential names to keep in mind.

There is a long history of success here

Coaches can win here: The last six Fresno State coaches have fielded teams that won at least 10 games in a season. That list includes both Tedford stints, DeBoer, Tim DeRuyter, Pat Hill and Jim Sweeney.

The Bulldogs are also coming off a nine-win season and expecting to contend in the Mountain West in 2024. This won’t be a rebuild in the traditional sense. The program expects and knows how to win. Its success and history will help the quality of the candidate pool.

How important are California and school ties?

It’s been almost 50 years since Fresno State hired a head coach without ties to the school or the state. Tedford was a Fresno State alumnus. DeBoer had been Tedford’s offensive coordinator with the Bulldogs. DeRuyter was from Long Beach. Hill had previously been a Fresno State assistant.

That emphasis is also evident in recruiting, with 88 players on the 2024 roster hailing from California.

New athletic director Garrett Klassy comes from the University of Houston and previously worked at Nebraska, UIC, Oregon, Alabama and Wisconsin. Will that play a role in the candidates he considers?

Financial support has been tough to come by

Tedford’s 2023 salary was around $1.5 million. That’s on the high end of the Group of 5 and could be enough to pull Power 4 coordinators into the pool, but it’s middle-of-the-pack for the Mountain West these days. Former coaches Craig Bohl (Wyoming) and Brent Brennan (San Jose State) were both above $2 million.

The football program’s facilities are behind much of the rest of the conference, and recent attempts to improve them have come up short. Residents voted against a ballot measure in both 2022 and 2024 which would have provided infrastructure funding to the school as a whole through a tax increase. There are larger Cal State system funding concerns down the road as well.

The football program’s NIL presence has grown over the years. Former quarterbacks David and Derek Carr donated to the Bulldog Bread collective earlier this year.

So who could get in the mix?

The list has to start with current interim head coach Tim Skipper, who led the Bulldogs to a New Mexico Bowl win in Tedford’s place last December. He’s a Fresno State alum who is in his second stint on staff, having also coached at Florida, UNLV, Central Michigan and Colorado State. Skipper is well-liked in the program, and interim head coaches at Northwestern and Boise State both won their way into the full-time job last season. If Fresno State has the big season many people expect this year, perhaps its search stops here.

Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore is a former Fresno State assistant, and hiring Tedford’s previous offensive coordinator worked last time, right? Moore directed one of the most improved offenses in the SEC last season at Mizzou, where he calls the plays. The Tigers went 10-2 in the regular season and scored at least 33 points against every SEC opponent except Georgia. He spent 2017-22 at Fresno State, including that last season as Tedford’s offensive coordinator, and he was one of the best recruiters in the Mountain West.

UAB head coach Trent Dilfer is a former Fresno State player whose number is retired, and he has spoken with the school about the job in the past. There’s a natural connection there, but the aforementioned funding situation could make this a tougher match. Dilfer has been given a lot to work with at UAB. Plus, his immediate family is based in the Southeast these days. He also needs to improve upon the Blazers’ 4-8 record in his debut season.

Kansas State co-offensive coordinator Matt Wells has Mountain West head coaching experience at Utah State and nearly got the New Mexico job, which went to Bronco Mendenhall. Wells went 44-34 at USU, including two 10-win seasons, but he was fired midway through his third season at Texas Tech, finishing with a 13-17 record. He spent the past two years at Oklahoma in an off-field role before getting the co-OC job at K-State. The Wildcats could have a big season with quarterback Avery Johnson at the controls. If they do, Wells will get more looks.

Georgia defensive backs coach Donte Williams, one of the best West Coast recruiters in the country, came to Athens from USC this offseason. The Los Angeles native coached at San Jose State from 2013 to ‘15 and as recruiting coordinator was the driving force behind most of the Spartans’ classes. He went 3-7 as USC’s interim head coach in 2021 after being thrust into a tough position at the end of Clay Helton’s tenure, then was retained by Lincoln Riley. Williams has also coached at Oregon, Arizona and Nebraska.

Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White has spent most of his career coaching in the Southwest, and the Huskers defense made huge strides in his first season. The longtime San Diego State assistant, who produced some of the best defenses in the country during that run, was in the mix for the Aztecs’ head job when it opened last winter, and he has also coached at Arizona State, UCLA, New Mexico and Syracuse.

Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn is a San Diego native with West Coast coaching experience. He has been at Oklahoma State since 2011, overseeing star players like Biletnikoff Award winners Justin Blackmon and James Washington and moving up the ranks to offensive coordinator in 2020. Under Dunn’s watch, Ollie Gordon II won the Doak Walker Award last season as the Cowboys reached the Big 12 championship game. Dunn has coached at Arizona, Washington State and New Mexico, among other stops.

Arizona State offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo is a longtime West Coast assistant, a former San Jose State quarterback and a Sacramento native. Arroyo went 7-23 as UNLV head coach from 2020 to ’22, but his teams improved from 0-6 to 2-10 to 5-7 while recruiting pretty well for a program that had long been considered one of the worst in the FBS. He spent 2023 out of coaching and joined the Sun Devils last winter. He has coached at Oregon, Cal (under Tedford), Oklahoma State and in the NFL. We’ll have to see how this first season in Tempe goes.

Florida co-defensive coordinator Ron Roberts has come up in previous Fresno State searches. He’s a California native who coached at multiple high schools in the state. Roberts also has an impressive 89-45 record as a head coach at Delta State and Southeastern Louisiana. He has bounced around the last couple of years from Baylor to Auburn and now to Florida.

Montana State head coach Brent Vigen is 32-9 in three-plus seasons, reaching the FCS national championship in 2021 and the semifinal in 2022. Before that, he was a Wyoming offensive assistant for seven seasons and a North Dakota State assistant for 16 years. He knows the Mountain West region, and he has head coaching experience.

Idaho head coach Jason Eck has turned the Vandals from a losing team into a top-10 FCS program, going 9-4 and reaching the FCS quarterfinals in Eck’s second season. He was previously at South Dakota State, including three years as offensive coordinator.

Former Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst was close to getting the Iowa offensive coordinator job this offseason after spending the 2023 season as an analyst at Texas. He went 67-26 at Wisconsin before getting fired amid a 2-3 start. His overall resume is really strong with three New Year’s Six bowl appearances, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Big Ten-style recruiting battles. He coached at Oregon State and with the San Diego Chargers in the late ’90s, so he’s been on the West Coast before. If he’s looking to get a head coaching job, perhaps he’ll be considered. The Mountain West has a track record of giving former head coaches a new chance.

Former Nebraska and UCF head coach Scott Frostis about to spend his second year out of coaching while living in Arizona, but he was on a quick rise before Nebraska, including a successful run as Oregon’s offensive coordinator that saw Marcus Mariota win the Heisman Trophy. He took over a winless UCF program and went 13-0 in his second season. His 16-31 record at Nebraska has been tough to overcome. If he’s able to show he’s ready to run a program again, perhaps he could get a look.

Texas A&M co-offensive coordinator Holmon Wiggins is a Los Angeles native who played at New Mexico. He spent the past five seasons coaching Alabama’s wide receivers, producing several first-round picks, including Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith. He’s one of the best recruiters in the country and could get a look back in his home state.

Kansas State offensive coordinator Conor Riley spent 2011 and 2012 at Sacramento State. He was promoted to coordinator this offseason to replace Collin Klein and has coached the offensive line since 2019. He’s regularly produced one of the best offensive lines in the country, and the K-State offense is expected to have a big season with quarterback Avery Johnson this fall.

(Photo: Sam Wasson / Getty Images)

Chris Vannini covers national college football issues and the coaching carousel for The Athletic. A co-winner of the FWAA's Beat Writer of the Year Award in 2018, he previously was managing editor of CoachingSearch.com. Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisVannini