College Football Coach Hire Grades: San Jose State

San Jose State Spartans: Ken Niumatalolo

Why the job was open: San Jose State is an interesting job. They are in a great location, but historically the program struggled. In the last couple decades coaches occasionally managed a good season here or there but struggled to sustain it. Brent Brennan helped change that a bit, it took a couple years to get going but he broke through with an amazing 2020 season and kept the program contending for bowl eligibility after. 2023 ended with the Spartans in a 3 way tie for 1st in the Mountain West but they missed the championship game by virtue of a tiebreaker. San Jose State ended up losing Brennan as a result of the Nick Saban retirement domino effect.

Coach Profile: Ken Niumatalolo spent a lot of his time with Paul Johnson. In college he played QB at Hawaii where Paul Johnson was the OC, together they led Hawaii to their first ever bowl win in 1989. Niumatalolo got his college career started working under Johnson as well. This, of course led to Niumatalolo spending a lot of time at Navy and he would eventually become the HC there before the 2008 season when Johnson went to Georgia Tech. He set a strong tone in his first season when Navy upset a ranked Wake Forest team, and 2009 was even better with a 10 win season highlighted by taking Ohio State down to the wire in the opener, beating Notre Dame and pummeling Missouri in the Texas Bowl. His time there was so impressive that the list goes on and on, he also won his first 9 meetings against Army and compiled 6 9+ win seasons, including 2 where the Midshipmen finished ranked. Overall his record was 109-83, things took a downturn during Covid and after with 3 straight seasons of 4-8 or worse, and some awkward power struggles with the administration.

Why he will succeed: Ken Niumatalolo is one of the best coaches around, and he brings instant relevance to San Jose State. San Jose State has continued to invest more heavily in the program and their resources are better than ever. He’s not going to try to force the option offense into a program that can bring in the players to throw the ball.

What obstacles are in the way of success: He’s likely going to be hands off to help with it, but moving from the option offense to the more wide open system they plan to run is going to be an adjustment, managing the game is entirely different and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts. There’s still concern over how things finished at Navy, why couldn’t he regain his mojo after Covid? NIL will be another challenge too, Niumatalolo hasn’t been with a program where players are eligible for it.

Grade: B+ – I really love this hire, it was almost in the A range for me but the big shift in philosophies for Niumatalolo and how things finished at Navy means there’s some risk to this hire, but for the most part I think San Jose State brought in a guy who’s going to keep the program’s momentum going.