Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 5-9
New Mexico’02L’03L’04L’06L’07WSan Diego State’11L’12L’13W’14L’15W’16W’17L’18L’19W
Show all 14 games
2002Las Vegas BowlL 13-27
2003Las Vegas BowlL 14-55
2004Emerald BowlL 19-34
2006New Mexico BowlL 12-20
2007New Mexico BowlW 23-0
San Diego State
2011New Orleans BowlL 30-32
2012Poinsettia BowlL 6-23
2013Famous Idaho Potato BowlW 49-24
2014Poinsettia BowlL 16-17
2015Hawaii BowlW 42-7
2016Las Vegas BowlW 34-10
2017Armed Forces BowlL 35-42
2018Frisco BowlL 0-27
2019New Mexico BowlW 48-11
Coordinator years
Defensive coordinator across 2 programs, 2 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.
How to read this. Coordinator seasons come from our coordinator career records; head-coaching-era seasons are the same unit's FBS-relative percentile for those years, regardless of who coached it, read directly from the staff assignments record. A role change (a “hinge”) is a fact, never a performance verdict — only the season-by-season data itself is colored by outcome.
Report card
Above the median on both sides of the ball — 59th percentile offense, 73rd percentile defense.
San Diego State, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
8-3 against his rivals at New Mexico. Winless in 4 tries against Bronco Mendenhall.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
4-5 against his rivals at San Diego State. Just 1-2 against Bryan Harsin.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
12-8 against his rivals. Winless in 5 tries against Bronco Mendenhall.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Horton.
6,951 run and pass snaps at San Diego State, 2011–2019, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His 2 ranked San Diego State classes of his own have averaged #85 nationally — best #79, worst #91.
His class — he had the full signing cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2019 roster arrived on his watch — 113 of 113 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2011-2019) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his San Diego State rosters have averaged 5 lb heavier than the FBS average (2011–2019) — heavier than 76% of FBS coaching runs since 2010.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 127 of 197 signees (64%) across his 2011–2019 tenure, drawn from 21 states in all. Next: TX (20).
77% of his signees come from CA and its 3 border states (AZ 12, NV 12).
Off this map: 5 signees to the east (FL 2, GA, others).
- median hometown distance
- 259 mi
- within 100 mi
- 36%
- within 500 mi
- 73%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 21%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 8 of them himself; 3 arrived under Brady Hoke. 6 more can’t be traced to who brought them in (no roster record). 1 went in the first round.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | R5.11 | Keith Ismael | Center |  Washington Football Team | |
| 2019 | R3.22 | Kahale Warring | Tight End |  Houston Texans | |
| 2018 | R1.27 | Rashaad Penny | Running Back |  Seattle Seahawks | |
| 2018 | R7.19 | Nick Bawden | Fullback |  Detroit Lions | |
| 2017 | R4.16 | Nico Siragusa | Offensive Guard |  Baltimore Ravens | |
| 2017 | R4.26 | Donnel Pumphrey | Running Back |  Philadelphia Eagles | |
| 2017 | R5.05 | Damontae Kazee | Cornerback |  Atlanta Falcons | |
| 2015 | R4.31 | Terry Poole | Offensive Tackle | Seattle Seahawks |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | R5.12 | Nat Berhe | Safety |  New York Giants | recruited under Brady Hoke |
| 2014 | R6.32 | Eric Pinkins | Safety | Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2013 | R2.15 | Gavin Escobar | Tight End |  Dallas Cowboys | recruited under Brady Hoke |
| 2013 | R3.06 | Leon McFadden | Cornerback |  Cleveland Browns | recruited under Brady Hoke |
| 2013 | R7.03 | Brice Butler | Wide Receiver |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2012 | R3.04 | Ronnie Hillman | Running Back |  Denver Broncos | Estimated |
| 2012 | R4.34 | Miles Burris | Outside Linebacker | Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2012 | R6.15 | Ryan Lindley | Quarterback |  Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 2012 | R7.11 | Jerome Long | Defensive Tackle |  Kansas City Chiefs | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
3rd-best San Diego State tenure of 11 by the numbers.
Followed Brady Hoke (2009–2010) · succeeded by Brady Hoke (2020–2023).
| Season | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||
| Record | 8-5 | 9-4 | 8-5 | 7-6 | 11-3 | 11-3 | 10-3 | 7-6 | 10-3 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | |
| Coordinators | ||||||||||
| OC | — | — | — | Bob Toledo | Jeff Horton | Jeff Horton | Jeff Horton | Jeff Horton | Jeff Horton | |
| DC | — | — | — | — | — | Rocky Long | Danny Gonzales | Zach Arnett | Zach Arnett | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||
| Offense | 58 | 71 | 36 | 33 | 80 | 72 | 87 | 34 | 16 | |
| Defense | 33 | 80 | 68 | 79 | 99 | 93 | 73 | 57 | 97 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | 38.6 | 38.0 | 35.8 | 33.2 | 16.0 | 23.3 | 24.6 | 25.3 | 31.9 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 40.5 | 35.9 | 24.8 | 27.9 | 27.4 | 23.2 | 34.0 | 31.3 | 26.5 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 35.5 | 47.5 | 48.0 | 16.3 | 20.5 | 24.4 | 13.8 | 29.8 | 31.6 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on offense and outperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
1st-best New Mexico tenure of 22 by the numbers.
Followed Dennis Franchione (1992–1997) · succeeded by Mike Locksley (2009–2011).
| Season | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||||||||
| Record | 3-9 | 4-7 | 5-7 | 6-5 | 7-7 | 8-5 | 7-5 | 6-5 | 6-7 | 9-4 | 4-8 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | L bowl | L bowl | L bowl | — | L bowl | W bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | 59 | 38 | 61 | 26 | 47 | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | 34 | 93 | 88 | 96 | 62 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | 32.1 | 29.9 | 42.7 | 43.5 | 29.5 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | 37.1 | 27.2 | 40.4 | 25.4 | 15.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 34.4 | 14.3 | 34.3 | 32.0 | |
12 NFL Draft picks: Brian Urlacher (2000), Casey Tisdale (2000), Joe Maese (2001), Jarrod Baxter (2002), Claude Terrell (2005), Nick Speegle (2005), Ryan Cook (2006), Terrance Pennington (2006) + 4 more
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
most wins by a Mountain West coach
Was he good?
The data leans positive, where the data can separate from zero: every conclusive reading points the same way.
+17.3 pts at San Diego State · #93 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.