Jason Hawkins speaks with media after San Jose State's win over Santa Clara on March 29, 2017.

Just four days before he would have started his second season, Jason Hawkins resigned as San Jose State baseball head coach on Monday, announced athletic director Marie Tuite.

Hawkins was placed on administrative leave in December, as Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball.com reported on December 23, 2017. Around the same time, pitching coach Dean Stiles resigned, and on January 8, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced that Stiles had become pitching coach for its advanced rookie minor league affiliate Ogden Raptors.

Multiple sources contacted by Inside the Spartans would not provide a reason behind his leave, but The Mercury News reported on January 8 that San Jose State “declined to comment on rumors of an ongoing investigation after Hawkins allegedly held illegal practices.”

In his only season, Hawkins went 19-35-1 (10-18-1, sixth place in Mountain West), a slight improvement over the 17-39 (7-23, seventh in MW) record in 2016, after which San Jose State fired head coach Dave Nakama. Despite a 9-9 (5-4 MW) start in 2017, poor pitching led to multiple long losing streaks from late March to early May. The team did win three of the final four games, two of which were on the road against UNLV.

Hawkins becomes the second head coach to resign during the Tuite administration. In July, men's basketball head coach Dave Wojcik resigned for personal reasons.

On January 29, San Jose State hired former assistant coach Brad Sanfilippo as interim head coach. A former player at UC Davis and local head coach at Los Gatos High School, Sanfilippo was an assistant under Nakama at San Jose State in 2013 and 2014 and at California under David Esquer from 2010 to 2012 and 2015 to 2017. A national search for the next head coach has begun.

The baseball season begins on Friday, with a four-game weekend series against Northern Colorado at Municipal Stadium in San Jose.