Fresno State names Eric Kiesau interim head coach

Fresno State is in the market for a new head coach and in the mean time athletics director Tim Bartko announced during Sunday’s press conference that offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau will be the interim head coach.

Kiesau is in his first year at Fresno State as he was hired away from Alabama where he was an offensive consultant, but prior to that he was the offensive coordinator with the Washington Huskies in 2012-13 and as the wide receivers coach at Kansas in 2014. He had a stint as the primary play caller in Lawrence late in 2014, as well, after being promoted to co-coordinator in relief of John Reagan.

In his one short year as offensive coordinator the Fresno State offense has shown signs of life, at times. The start to the Tulsa game showed what this offense could do as it score 31 first half points, but then there were too many games where the offense was shut down and they are last in the conference in yards per game, yards per play and the only Mountain West school to have fewer than 1,000 yards.

One big positive from Kiesau is that he has stuck with Chason Virgil at quarterback -- outside of a few plays here and there — which is a big difference from former offensive coordinator Dave Schramm who had a rotating door at quarterback and was reported to kill the confidence of the quarterback group.

Sometimes an interim coach gets a chance to win the job but there are early reports that Jeff Tedford will be the next head coach at Fresno State, but there has been no announcements and in fact other names have popped up since the announcement of DeRuyter being let go.