Western Kentucky is firing football coach Mike Sanford after two seasons on the job and a 9-16 overall record, sources told SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey on Sunday.
WKU’s firing Mike Sanford just 2 seasons after he replaced Jeff Brohm
The Hilltoppers fell off badly in Sanford’s two years.
Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
WKU hired Sanford after the 2016 season, when Jeff Brohm left the Hilltoppers to take the head coaching job at Purdue. Brohm had built WKU into one of the country’s most prolific and fun offenses, something he’s since emulated to an extent in West Lafayette. WKU won 23 games in Brohm’s last two seasons in charge, winning two Conference USA titles.
The Hilltoppers declined to 6-7 with a Cure Bowl loss in Sanford’s first year, 2017. Then they cratered this year, going 3-9 and slotting 107th in the national S&P+ rankings. One of their losses was to FCS Maine. Another was to Old Dominion in one of the wildest (and most avoidable) endings ever. Sanford’s Tops won their last two games against UTEP and Louisiana Tech, but that didn’t turn out to be enough.
Sanford’s hook after two years is one of the quickest in recent times for a coach let go due to football reasons. The school’s administration will now try to find another Brohm.
Sanford is 36 and had spent the two years before coming to WKU as Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator. He previously had the same job at Boise State, as well as a handful of position coaching gigs at Stanford, Yale, and WKU before that. He’s likely to be a hot name as teams fill offensive coordinator vacancies over the coming weeks.
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