By Burt Leeson

SAN DIEGO — Brady Hoke, the 2011 Maxwell Football Club Collegiate Coach of the Year and four-time conference coach of the year, announced today that he is retiring as head football coach at San Diego State. Hoke will coach the Aztecs in the final two regular-season games this season.

Hoke owns a 39-31 (.557) record at SDSU in six seasons across two head coaching stints, ranking seventh in program history in victories (39) and winning percentage (.557, min. 2 seasons). For his career, Hoke is 104-89 (.539) with stints at his alma mater Ball State (2003-08), Michigan (2011-14) and San Diego State (2009-10, 2020-23).

“I am proud of what we accomplished at San Diego State,” Hoke said. “I am grateful to all the great student-athletes I’ve had the chance to work with, molding them into men, husbands, fathers and pillars in the community. I will always cherish my time leading this program. I’d also like to thank the wonderful staff I’ve worked with and wish them the best in the future.”

Hoke began his San Diego State coaching career in 2009, taking over a program that hadn’t had a winning season or a bowl appearance since 1998. It took Hoke just two seasons to make the Aztecs a Mountain West power as the 2010 team went 9-4 and beat Navy, 35-14, in the Poinsettia Bowl. Hoke started a streak of SDSU being bowl eligible each of the next 13 seasons (2010-22), tied for the sixth-longest streak nationally and longest among Pacific Time Zone teams.

“I am very appreciative for the work Brady Hoke has done with our football program at San Diego State both on and off the field,” Wicker said. “Brady set the standard in 2009 when he first arrived on The Mesa that we now hold ourselves too. However, it’s more than wins and losses.  Brady created a culture, led our program thru COVID, played two entire seasons in Carson, including a 12-win campaign, and takes seriously the development of young men off the field as well as on. I wish Kelly, Laura and Brady a happy retirement!”

Hoke has received conference coach-of-the-year recognition in three different leagues as a head coach, including the Mid-American Conference in 2008, the Big Ten Conference in 2011 and the Mountain West in 2010 and 2021.

Most recently, Hoke led the 2021 San Diego State team to a school-record 12 victories, only trailing national champion Georgia, and College Football Playoff teams Alabama and Cincinnati for the most in the country. The Aztecs, who played all 14 of their games away from their own market, including eight “home games” two hours from campus at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, finished the 2021 season ranked 25th in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll. It was the third time in program history SDSU made the final AP Top 25 poll (also 1977 (16th) and 2016 (25th)).

San Diego State, which played five teams who reached double-digit victories in 2021, securing wins over Pac-12 Champion/Rose Bowl participant Utah (10-4), UTSA (12-2) and Air Force (10-3), was also ranked in every CFP poll in 2021 after never being ranked in each of the first seven years of the poll.

Hoke is the only active college coach to lead three different FBS programs (Ball State, Michigan and SDSU) to an 11-win season and one of only two coaches overall since 1996 (also Urban Meyer with Utah, Florida and Ohio State).

Hoke served as head coach at Michigan from 2011-14, guiding the Wolverines to a 31-20 record, including an 18-14 conference ledger. He became the first Michigan head coach to go undefeated at home (14-0) in his first two seasons since Fielding Yost in 1901-02. Hoke directed Michigan to an 11-2 record and a victory in the Allstate Sugar Bowl in his first season on the Ann Arbor campus. For his efforts, Hoke collected the inaugural Hayes-Schembechler Coach of the Year award from the Big Ten Conference coaches while garnering Dave McClain Coach of the Year accolades from the Big Ten media. In addition, he was named the Maxwell Football Club Collegiate Coach of the Year that season and was a finalist for three other national Coach of the Year honors: Bear Bryant, Eddie Robinson and Liberty Mutual.

Hoke earned his first head coaching job at Ball State, where he guided the program for six seasons, culminating with a 12-1 campaign in 2008 and an undefeated MAC regular season. With Hoke at the controls, Ball State made its’ first-ever appearance in the national polls in 2008, ranking as high as 12th by the AP and 13th in the USA Today Coaches poll. For his efforts, Hoke was one of 10 finalists for the 2008 Liberty Mutual National Coach of the Year award.

Hoke also had assistant coaching stints at Grand Valley State (1983), Western Michigan (1984-86), Toledo (1987-88), Oregon State (1989-94), Michigan (1995-2002), Oregon (2016) and Tennessee, where he was named interim head coach for the final two games of the 2017 campaign. He began his coaching career as an assistant at Yorktown (Ind.) High School in 1981.

COURTESY SAN DIEGO STATE ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS