San Diego State quarterbacks coach Blane Morgan’s departure could be only the start of staff movement for SDSU assistant coaches.

Aztecs head coach Rocky Long said several assistant coaches are in the midst of interviewing for positions at other schools. Long would not specify which coaches are interviewing, but he did say it involves those on both sides of the ball.

“For some reason the people out there think that we have really good coaches on our staff,” Long said. “I know there’s a lot of people around here that might not think that, but outside of here there’s a whoooole bunch of people that think that.

“I would say there are four coaches on our staff that are in the process of being interviewed. They have not been offered jobs, but they are one of three that are negotiating about a job with some other head coaches. These are all for assistant coaching positions. It might be a raise in pay, might be more authority. And I don’t know this yet, but I’m sure Blane is going to take some of our younger coaches with him. Couple GAs or something like that.”


Morgan was hired last week as head coach at Lamar University, returning to his Texas roots at the school in Beaumont, Texas.

Former SDSU defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales also could be interested in someone from the staff. Gonzales, who spent the last two seasons as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Arizona State, has reportedly been hired as the new head coach at New Mexico. Gonzales, too, is returning to where he grew up and played.

As far as the other SDSU assistants interviewing, Long said he doesn’t expect any decisions to come before Saturday’s game against Central Michigan in the New Mexico Bowl and perhaps not before bowl season is completed in January.

“As soon as the bowl games are over it gets hot and heavy,” Long said. “Then it goes it into the coaches convention and a lot of the negotiating goes on at the coaches convention (Jan. 12-14 in Nashville, Tenn.).”


Long said he has already had 300 contacts — phone calls, texts and emails — inquiring about replacing Morgan.

“Easily, easily,” Long said. “Not specifically a guy who wants the job, but a guy who’s recommending somebody. If you add together the guys who have called me, and the guys who have called for other guys, and the guys that are interested in what I’m looking for and about 10 agents, you get 300 phone calls. That’s normal. As soon as a coach’s name goes out there that he’s taken a job somewhere else, you get inundated with stuff.

“Coaches want to be in a program where you’ve been to 10 straight bowl games and where you win eight and nine games a year, because they see that as security. Some of them are on staffs winning five and six games, so they know that’s not very secure. Anytime you get an opening on a staff that goes to 10 straight bowl games, you get a whole lot of interest, now.”

Long is getting an idea of assistant coaches who might be interested in joining SDSU’s staff, but he will not make any hires until everything shakes out with current staff members.


“Obviously, we’re losing (Morgan) and might lose some more, so you make contact with some guys to see if they would be interested,” Long said, “but everybody I’ve been contacting I’ve been telling I’m going to wait until it all works out.

“I’m not interested in replacing just one guy now because if I have two or four guys to replace, I want to do it in a combined effort so that all the pieces match.”