San Diego State has added a year to the contract of football coach Rocky Long, extending him through the 2022 season.

“He’s going to be the coach at San Diego State as long as he wants to be the coach at San Diego State,” said John David Wicker, SDSU’s director of athletics. “Adding a year just makes sense. It’s easy. …

“I’m fortunate that Rocky Long and most of the other people in this department are good people first. That’s the great thing about Rocky, he’s a great person and he’s a great football coach as well. He’s going to surround himself with those types of people and he’s going to look for high-character kids that can come in here and do great things.”

Long, 68, has been with the SDSU football program for 10 years, the past seven years as head football coach. During his tenure he has guided the Aztecs to three Mountain West championships and seven straight bowl appearances.


“It’s nice that they care and want to do that,” Long said. “To be honest with you, when we were talking about it, a contract came down and I just signed it. I had no idea I’d been extended a year.

“I’m at the age now in my life where security’s not the No. 1 issue with me. But it’s nice that they care.”

Having the head coach extended out five years is important for recruiting in college football.

“The biggest value is we can recruit and if they’re coming here because of the way we run the program, they can be assured the program is going to be run the same way,” Long said. “That’s the No. 1 advantage.


“The other advantage is … is the younger coaches in our program that have families and kids, security’s a big deal to them. And them seeing they can stay here for the next four or five years, or get a better job for more money, either way they’ve won. I think that’s important, too.”

SDSU is coming off a 10-3 season, the Aztecs’ third straight year of double-digit wins after going 11-3 in both 2015 and 2016. Long is among six coaches — with Alabama’s Nick Saban, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy and Wisconsin’s Paul Chryst — who have guided their teams to double-digit wins each of the past three seasons.

Asked if San Diego State is his last college coaching job, Long said: “I plan on coaching as long as they’ll let me coach and I have enough energy to do it the right way. I plan on doing that.

“And as I told somebody else today, there’s nobody else going to be interested in me because of my advanced age. So I would guess this will be my last stop. One way or the other, this is the last stop.”


Long has compiled a 64-29 record (.688 winning percentage) at SDSU and 129-98 (.568) overall mark, including 11 seasons as head coach at New Mexico. He is one of just eight active FBS coaches to lead their current team to a bowl game in each of their first seven seasons.

Don Coryell (104-19-2, .840) is the only coach in SDSU history with more victories and Coryell and Claude Gilbert (61-26-2, .697) are the school’s only coaches with higher winning percentages.

Long signed a five-year, $4 million contract in 2011 when he was promoted from defensive coordinator to replace Brady Hoke. This is his third extension. He received a two-year extension in 2013 at the same salary and a four-year extension last year with a slight raise from $815,048 to $826,304 per season. It was bumped again last July to $831,304. The latest extension boosts his annual salary to $872,576.

Long remains well down the list among his college football peers, ranking No. 82 (at $826,304) in salary on a chart compiled last year by USA Today. The top 10 coaches each received at least $5 million, led by Alabama’s Saban with $11,132,000.


Long ranked sixth among Mountain West coaches, behind Boise State’s Bryan Harsin ($1,550,004), Colorado State’s Mike Bobo ($1,550,000), Fresno State’s Jeff Tedford ($1,550,000), Wyoming’s Craig Bohl ($1,412,000) and Utah State’s Matt Wells ($1,050,000).

Salaries for SDSU assistant coaches totaled $1,741,708, which ranked 59th on the list. It ranked third among Mountain West schools, behind Boise State ($2,085, 101) and Colorado State ($1,884,000).

The USA Today list included information from 121 of 130 Division I schools. Mountain West member Air Force was among those where information was not available.


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kirk.kenney@sduniontribune.com / on Twitter: @sdutkirKDKenney