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Jeff Tedford tracking alert!
I have heard from multiple sources that Jeff Tedford will be the next Head Football Coach at Fresno State.
— George Takata (@georgetakata) October 23, 2016
No Tedford announcement coming today, but he is the guy.
— George Takata (@georgetakata) October 23, 2016
Fresno State might be turning to their former alumnus to bring them back from the abyss. After a 1-7 start, Fresno State fired head coach Tim DeRuyter. There are rumors circulating the interwebs that Tedford might be returning to his roots to take the job. Tedford was a quarterback at Fresno in 1981-82 and set multiple passing records and returned in the 90s as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach before Oregon scooped him up.
Since being dismissed at Cal in 2012, Tedford has winded around the various football ranks. He was the offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers through the preseason in 2014 before angioplasty forced him away from the position. Tedford then spent last season as the head coach of the B.C. Lions, leading the CFL squad to a 7-11 record.
Tedford currently serves as an offensive consultant to Chris Petersen and the Washington Huskies, who are 7-0 and charging toward a potential Pac-12 title and maybe a playoff bid as well. Petersen has had nice things to say about Tedford’s influence on the Huskies this season.
Can you talk about bringing Jeff Tedford on, what’s his role, what can he do, what can’t he do, and what prompted that?
PETERSEN: Yeah, he can’t coach any of the players. He can be in all of our meetings. He can look at tape. We can talk to him. He can be in as many conversations in terms of all that type of stuff. What prompted it is he didn’t want to — he wanted to get back into college football, and there wasn’t an opportunity out there for him this year that he — making him a head coach or some other position like that, and he knows a lot of guys on our staff, and really that’s what this thing is all about is being around people you want to be around. So I think both sides wanted to be around each other, and he’s obviously a really good with a lot of knowledge and has done a lot of things, and so we feel real fortunate to get a guy like that to be able to be with us.
Ironically, if Tedford were to take the Fresno job, the Bulldogs are scheduled to play Washington next year. (Oh, and Alabama too. How fun).