Arizona assistant head football coach Rich Ellerson has accepted a position to coach the Southern Utah Thunderbirds, school officials announced Saturday.
The SUU coaching job has been open since Jack Bishop announced in mid-November that he would devote full attention to his duties as director of athletics."We feel very fortunate to have a man of Rich's caliber heading up our football program," Bishop said. "We interviewed a handful of outstanding candidates, but we felt Rich was the best man for our situation."
The Thunderbirds, whose bid to join the Big Sky Conference was rejected this year, finished the 1994 season, 2-9, the worst campaign of Bishop's 16-year tenure. He was 80-74-4 overall.
In addition to his assistant coaching duties, Ellerson was the defensive line coach and special teams coordinator at Arizona, whose team was told of his decision late Friday afternoon.
Ellerson also has been an assistant coach at Arizona Western Junior College, Idaho, Cal State Fullerton and Hawaii. He was at Arizona for the past four years.
"I'm really excited about all of this," Ellerson said. "This is it: a school at this level of football, a program that is trying to go someplace and a program that is in a positive transition."
During his Arizona stint, the Wildcats were ranked No. 1 and 2 nationally in rushing defense for three years and No. 7 this year.