Former Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George has agreed to a five-year deal to become the next head coach at Bowling Green, sourced told ESPN.
The agreement came two days after George, who has spent the last four seasons as the head coach at Tennessee State, was one of three finalists to interview for the Bowling Green job.
George emerged as a successful head coach in the FCS at Tennessee State. This past season, he led the program to the FCS playoffs and a share of the OVC-Big South title, the school’s first league title in football since 1999.
Now George returns to the state of Ohio, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1995 and ran for 3,768 yards over four seasons with the Buckeyes.
George went on to star in the NFL for nine seasons, rushing for more than 10,000 yards. He was a first-round pick of the Houston Oilers and made his name by playing seven seasons in Nashville for the Titans. The Titans have retired his jersey, as he’s the franchise’s all-time leading rusher.
Tennessee State hired George despite his lack of traditional coaching experience, with the school president at the time calling the move “the right choice and investment” for the future of TSU. George has worked as an actor and entrepreneur and earned an MBA from Northwestern.
George paid back the administration’s faith by building Tennessee State into a winner, including a 9-4 season in 2024 that culminated in an FCS playoff appearance. Tennessee State lost to Montana in the first round. That marked TSU’s first FCS playoff bid since 2013.
George’s hire at TSU continued the trend of former star players being hired at historically Black colleges and universities. Jackson State made the biggest splash in hiring Deion Sanders, who went on to a successful stint at Colorado. Both Michael Vick’s hire at Norfolk State and DeSean Jackson’s hire at Delaware State continued that trend in the current hiring cycle.
Bowling Green had been looking to replace Scot Loeffler, who left to become the quarterbacks coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Bowling Green has become one of the top coaching springboards this generation, with Urban Meyer, Dave Clawson and Dino Babers all advancing from the school to power conference jobs. Loeffler went 27-41 over six seasons, a run that included three straight bowl games the past three seasons.
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