Simmons Replaces Jones as Oklahoma State Coach

Bob Simmons, passed over for the head coaching job at Colorado, is the choice of Oklahoma State officials to lead the Cowboys’ struggling football program.

University President James Halligan said Wednesday that Simmons, 46, will be appointed to replace Pat Jones on Friday. Jones resigned after 11 seasons, with losing records the final six.

If approved by the university’s regents, as expected, Simmons would become the first black head football coach in Big Eight history and only the fifth black coach at an NCAA Division I-A school.

“He is the only man to whom the job was offered and he took it,” Halligan said.

Simmons was one of six men interviewed by a search committee, which concluded its work Tuesday. He was not in the football office at Colorado on Wednesday and could not be reached for comment at his home.

Simmons has been an assistant at Colorado the last seven seasons and was assistant head coach the past two. He was a candidate to replace Colorado Coach Bill McCartney and was one of two people McCartney recommended as his successor. But the school chose assistant Rick Neuheisel.

Simmons faces a difficult chore at Oklahoma State. Jones led the Cowboys to three 10-victory seasons in his first five years on the job. But since NCAA sanctions were handed down after the 1988 season, the Cowboys have an 18-45-3 record and are in the midst of an 18-game Big Eight winless streak dating to 1992.

The other four black head coaches at the Division I-A level are Ron Cooper of Eastern Michigan, Tyrone Willingham of Stanford, Jim Caldwell of Wake Forest and Ron Dickerson of Temple.

Oklahoma State also hired the first black head coach in basketball in the Big Eight when it hired Leonard Hamilton in 1986.