Murphy on List for Vacant San Jose St. Job : Football: Titan coach expects to speak to Spartan athletic director about replacing Terry Shea, who left for Stanford.

Cal State Fullerton football Coach Gene Murphy will likely be a candidate for the San Jose State coaching job, which opened Thursday when Spartan Coach Terry Shea resigned to become offensive coordinator at Stanford.

San Jose State Athletic Director Tom Brennan called Fullerton Athletic Director Bill Shumard Wednesday night and asked permission to speak to Murphy about the vacancy.

Murphy said Brennan had called while he was in a meeting Thursday afternoon, and when the coach returned the call, Brennan was in a meeting. Murphy still hadn’t heard from Brennan by late Thursday night but was expecting to speak to him today.

“I’m not just going to go up there for the sake of interviewing,” said Murphy, the 12-year Titan coach who was a finalist for the San Jose State job in the spring of 1990. “I’m going to speak to (Brennan) first. I want to see where he’s coming from, what exactly is going on.”

Brennan told reporters Thursday that he has a list of 10-15 candidates for the job, and Murphy is considered a strong candidate. Two other solid candidates are Rick Rasnick, now the offensive coordinator at Utah, and Bobby Toledo, offensive coordinator at Texas A&M.;

When a San Jose Mercury News reporter listed the names of possible successors to Shea and asked Brennan to comment on each, Brennan said of Murphy: “He inspires some enthusiasm on my part.”

Murphy was one of three finalists, along with Shea and then-San Jose State offensive coordinator Rasnick, for the Spartan job in the spring of 1990.

“Obviously he has my blessings,” Shumard said. “It would be a tough time to lose Gene, but he’s well-respected throughout this conference and well thought of in San Jose, as we saw the last time around.”

Several San Jose State administrators and boosters who spoke with Murphy during the 1990 interview process and who are familiar with Fullerton’s program are apparently impressed with the coach’s ability to do a lot with limited resources.

Although San Jose State has been much more competitive than Fullerton in recent years, the Spartans and Titans face similar obstacles.

Both compete for attention in large media markets and recruit in the shadows of major Division I programs, Fullerton near USC and UCLA and San Jose near Cal and Stanford.

Both athletic programs have faced massive budget cuts in recent years, and both football teams suffer from a lack of fan support. San Jose has a 30,000-seat stadium, and Fullerton is set to open its long-awaited, 10,000-seat on-campus stadium next fall.

“Gene has worked so hard and waited so long to play in the stadium, he’s having a good recruiting class, morale is up and we’re hoping to make strides in the program,” Shumard said. “I’m sure he’ll consider everything very carefully.”