SHSU Releases List of Football Coach Candidates

By Brian Lacy
The Huntsville Item

And then there were 28. From the group of more than 60 people who sent resumés, the Sam Houston State University athletic department released the names Tuesday of 28 applicants who are being considered for the vacant head football coach position.

The Huntsville Item submitted an open records request to the athletic department on Friday, seeking permission to view the names of people who have applied for the job. The Item was invited to view the documents Tuesday morning at the Bowers Stadium field house.

Of the 28 candidates, 10 have a connection to SHSU either as a coach or player, including current offensive coordinator James Ferguson and former defensive coordinator Mike Lucas.

Eight Division II head coaches are hoping to step up to Division I-AA, including four from the Lone Star Conference, which consists of Texas and Oklahoma schools. Tarleton State coach Todd Whitten, who was offensive coordinator at SHSU in 1999, is included with that group.

Three high school coaches from Texas have applied, including two with SHSU ties. Doug Fertsch at Round Rock Westwood High School coached at SHSU in the early 1990s, while Klein Oak head coach Dave Smith played for the Bearkats in the mid-1970s. Pasadena Dobie High School coach Tommy Kaiser is the other current high school coach on the list.

Notable names on the list include former Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville, former Nebraska quarterback and longtime Cornhusker assistant coach Turner Gill, and former Illinois coach Lou Tepper, who now coaches at a Division II school in Pennsylvania.

The football coach search committee met Monday to look over the candidates and select four finalists to be interviewed in Huntsville next week. Once the four finalists have been contacted and interview times set, the names of the finalists will be released later this week.

The following names of head coach candidates are listed in alphabetical order. The information provided includes their current job, other notable job experience and their connection, if any, with SHSU.

Blake Anderson
Anderson worked this past season as the co-offensive coordinator/wide receiver coach at Middle Tennessee State University where he has been for three years. He worked at SHSU in 1994 as the linebackers coach. After transferring from Baylor, he played for the Bearkats from 1989-91, and graduated from SHSU in 1992.

Corey Batoon
Batoon has worked since 1998 as the defensive coordinator at Northern Arizona University. The Lumberjacks and Kats have played three times during his tenure, with SHSU winning a 2001 I-AA playoff game and NAU winning regular-season games in 2002 and 2003.

Pat Behrns
Behrns just completed his 11th season as head coach at Division II University of Nebraska-Omaha. His overall record is 79-46. The Mavericks have won four conference championships and finished as high as No. 4 in the Division II national rankings.

Dean Campbell
Campbell just finished his fifth season as the running backs coach at the Air Force Academy. He played at the University of Texas from 1969-72, and has coached at UT, Rice, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.

Richard Cundiff
Cundiff has been coaching at Texas A&M-Kingsville since 1986, where he has been the head coach since 2000. Prior to that, he spent 14 seasons as the defensive coordinator for the Javelinas.

James Ferguson
Ferguson has been SHSU's offensive coordinator since coming to Huntsville in 2000. During his first four seasons, Ferguson's offensive units averaged 357.3 yards total offense and 27.4 points. In 2004, the Kats averaged more than 471 yards and 37.0 points per game en route to finishing the season ranked No. 4 in the nation in Division I-AA.

Doug Fertsch
Fertsch has spent the past two seasons as the head coach at Class 5A Round Rock Westwood High School near Austin. Previous coaching stints include time at Baylor (1991-2002) as the offensive line coach, and 1990-92 at SHSU.

Kevin Fouquier
Fouquier has been the assistant head coach at Middle Tennessee State University since 2002 and coaches the defensive line, a job he's held since arriving there in 2000. He coached the defensive line at SHSU from 1993-95.

Willie Fritz
Fritz has been the head coach at Division II Central Missouri State since 1997. In 1995 and 1996, he coached Blinn College in Brenham to back-to-back junior college national championships. He received his master's degree from SHSU in 1986, and coached the Bearkat special teams unit from 1991-92.

Jerry Glanville
Glanville has spent the past five years as a color analyst for NFL games on Fox. He worked as head coach of the Houston Oilers from 1986-89, and coached the Atlanta Falcons in the early 1990s.

Turner Gill
Gill worked as an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska from 1992 through 2004. He started at quarterback for the Cornhuskers from 1981-83, finishing second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1983. He coached quarterback and wide receivers during his 12 seasons at Nebraska.

Steve Hagen
Hagen has worked as the Cleveland Browns quarterbacks and tight ends coach since 2001. Prior college coaching experience includes stints as offensive coordinator at California and University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He started his coaching career under Lou Holtz as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame.

Daryl Hobbs Sr.
Hobbs is currently working for a company in Humble. His football career includes serving as offensive coordinator at Santa Monica (Calif.) College, and he also played in the XFL.

Tommy Kaiser
Kaiser spent the 2004 season as head coach at Class 5A Pasadena Dobie High School in Houston. His most recent college experience was as assistant head coach at Oklahoma State University from 1994-99. He worked for the Buffalo Bills from 2001-03.

Art Kaufman
Kaufman is the defensive line coach at East Carolina University. Previous experience includes stops as defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech (1992-94) and Mississippi (1991-2000).

Larry Kueck
Kueck (pronounced "keck") has been the associate offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Marshall University since 2002. He held the same positions at SMU (2000-01), Southern Mississippi (1997-99) and Marshall (1996). Before that, he worked for SHSU as the offensive line coach from 1992-95.

Chuck Langston
Langston, 31, who played and coached for the Oklahoma Sooners, has been the head coach at Central Oklahoma University for the past two seasons, leading the Bronchos to a 9-3 national playoff berth in 2003, and an 8-2 season in 2004. The Beaumont Westbrook High School graduate also spent three seasons as head coach at Trinity Valley Community College.

Mike Lucas
Lucas retired from coaching in 2001 after working as SHSU's defensive coordinator since 1987 and also serving as assistant head coach since 1991. He currently lives in Montgomery.

Bill Maskill
Maskill has been the head coach at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls since 2002. Maskill has over 30 years of football coaching experience that includes stops as a Division 1 assistant at Vanderbilt, SMU, Wake Forest, Oregon, Tulane, Louisville, Arizona State, Vanderbilt, Bowling Green and Iowa. Maskill was the head coach for two seasons at Southeast Missouri State University. Midwestern State made the Division II playoffs this past season.

Robert Massey
Massey is an assistant coach at North Carolina Central University. His nine-year NFL playing career as a defensive back included stops in New Orleans, Phoenix, Detroit, Jacksonville and New York (Giants), and a trip to the Pro Bowl in 1992.

Sam McElroy
McElroy just finished his second season as the defensive backs coach at University of North Texas in Denton. He worked in the same position for SHSU from 1993-99. From 2000-2002, McElroy was the defensive coordinator at Division II Tarleton State University in Stephenville.

Bradley Dale Peveto
Peveto has been at Middle Tennessee State University for the past two seasons, serving as the defensive coordinator in 2004. From 1999-2002, he worked as co-defensive coordinator at Houston. Prior to that, he was the defensive coordinator at Northwestern State (1996-98).

Dave Roberts
Roberts was the running backs coach at South Carolina from 1999-2004. Before that, he was head coach at Baylor (1997 and '98) and worked as offensive coordinator at Notre Dame (1994-96).

Dave Smith
Smith has been the head coach at Klein Oak High School since 1995. He played his college football at SHSU (1974-77) and coached at Northern Illinois (1991-95) before returning to Texas.

Bob Stitt
Stitt has been the head coach at Colorado School of Mines for the past five season. After going 22-21 through the first four years, Stitt's squad went 12-1 this past season and qualified for the Division II playoffs, earning him 2004 Division II American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Regional Coach of the Year. His quarterback this season, Chad Friehauf, won the Harlon Hill Trophy (the Division II "Heisman Trophy") with amazing statistics - an NCAA Division II record 384 completions in 516 attempts (74.4%) for an NCAA Division II record 4,646 yards and 39 touchdowns, the 10th best for a single season in Division II history. He also ran 144 times for 717 yards and 15 touchdowns.

Lou Tepper
Tepper has been coaching at Division II Edinboro University in Pennsylvania since 2000. He took a program that has won 11 games the previous three seasons and turned it into a Division II playoff team in 2003. He was a head coach in the Big Ten Conference at the University of Illinois, where he went 25-31-2 from 1992-96. Before going to Edinboro, he worked as defensive coordinator at LSU.

Todd Whitten
Whitten has been the head coach at Division II Tarleton State University since the 2000 season, in which time he has established the Texans as a perennial Division II top 25 team. He was the offensive coordinator at SHSU in 1999. He was the head coach at Tarleton in 1996 before leaving to become offensive coordinator at Wyoming, where he spent one season.

- END -

Contact Brian Lacy at blacy@itemonline.com

SHSU Media Contact: Frank Krystyniak
Jan. 12, 2005
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu