REPORT: Jeff Tedford is the new Fresno State head coach

Jeff Tedford is returning to his alma mater. Welcome back to California Coach!

Jeff Tedford is headed back to the Bulldogs.

Fresno State is arranging a news conference for Friday to introduce the alum as its next football coach, sources told The Bee on Wednesday – the former Bulldogs quarterback bringing the Valley ties that athletic director Jim Bartko considers vital to the position, as well as a solid track record that includes a resuscitation of a flat-lining football program.

Several Cal players offered kind words.

“I’ve never been around a man who demanded so much respect,” Zack Follett said. “He’d walk into the training room and it would be like, ‘Coach is here.’ That’s just the way he carried himself and the discipline he embodied to the team. He was somebody that was well-respected.”

“I think it’s a no-brainer,” said Buchanan High football coach Matt Giordano, who played two years under Tedford at Cal. “He would be a huge addition to the community and the Bulldog program.”

“I have yet to sit down with Tedford and thank him for everything he’s ever done for me,” Safety Bernard Hicks said. “I really am blessed.”

He was a quarterback at Fresno in 1981-82 and set multiple passing records. In his coaching career, he 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 served this season as an offensive consultant to Chris Petersen and the Washington Huskies, who just whipped Cal, are 9-0 on the season, 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.