ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon got his man, hiring Brady Hoke on Tuesday as the Wolverines’ 19th football coach.
Brandon picked Hoke to replace the fired Rich Rodriguez, insisting the San Diego State coach and former Michigan assistant was “Plan A” and not a backup option after Jim Harbaugh left Stanford for the San Francisco 49ers and Les Miles stayed at LSU.
“The job was never offered to them,” Brandon said. “We did have different discussions with them that were helpful and positive. . . . Brady Hoke understands Michigan and he wanted this job because it has been (his) dream job. We won’t have to teach him the words to ‘The Victors’.”
Hoke was named the 2010 Mountain West Conference coach of the year after guiding the Aztecs to a 9-4 record and their first bowl game in 12 years, a 35-14 victory over Navy in the Poinsettia Bowl.
Former Colorado coach and Michigan assistant Bill McCartney, one of Miles’ coaching mentors, said he sent an e-mail to Miles on Monday imploring him to take the Michigan job.
“I wrote, ‘From one Michigan man to another, go build them back up,’ ” McCartney said Tuesday. “I’m really disappointed he didn’t take the premier job in all of sports.”
Aztecs defensive coordinator Rocky Long, a former coach at New Mexico and coordinator at Wyoming, is expected to succeed Hoke.
Whipple, UConn near deal
HARTFORD, Conn. — Former Miami offensive coordinator Mark Whipple is in the final stages of negotiations to become Connecticut’s coach.
Whipple, 53, was let go by Miami after head coach Randy Shannon was fired at the end of the season. Whipple coached Massachusetts to the 1998 Division I-AA championship. He would replace Randy Edsall, who took the head coaching job at Maryland after leading UConn to an 8-5 season and a berth in the Fiesta Bowl, where the Huskies lost to Oklahoma 48-20.
Footnotes.
Illinois running back Mikel LeShoure, who rushed for a school-record 1,697 yards and 17 TDs in 2010, said he will forgo his senior season to enter the NFL draft.
• West Virginia quarterback Barry Brunetti, who played as a backup in two games last season as a freshman, said he will transfer to Mississippi.
• Iowa cornerback Shaun Prater said he is returning for his senior season.
• Former South Florida coach Jim Leavitt will receive $2.75 million in the settlement of a lawsuit he filed against the school after he was fired last January.
