Mike Sanford

Mike Sanford (Born April 20, 1955) is a college football coach. He is currently the assistant head coach and running backs/tight ends coach at Utah State University. His previous positions include former head coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, offensive coordinator at the University of Louisville, and offensive coordinator at the University of Utah. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he played quarterback for the Trojans from 1973–1976.

Assistant Coaching Career
Sanford began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at USC in 1977. Since then, he has served as an assistant coach for numerous teams in the collegiate and professional ranks, including San Diego City College, the United States Military Academy, Virginia Military Institute, Long Beach State, Purdue, USC, Notre Dame, the San Diego Chargers and Stanford. In 2003 Urban Meyer hired Sanford as his offensive coordinator at Utah. That year, the Utes won the Mountain West Conference Championship and won the Liberty Bowl. The next year, the Utes repeated as conference champs and finished the season 12–0, including a win over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl. Sanford's offense averaged 45.3 points a game, and quarterback Alex Smith was MWC Player of the Year as well as a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. The following spring, Smith was the first overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft, selected by the San Francisco 49ers.

UNLV
On December 6, 2004, UNLV hired Sanford as the school's ninth head coach, taking over for the legendary John Robinson who went 2–9 his final year. Sanford inherited a program in decline. Some had blamed the program's problems on an inability to keep local talent at home. It was hoped that Sanford would reverse the fortunes of the long-suffering program with this new policy. His first two years at the helm produced just four total wins, on par with John Robinson's final season total.

Sanford's Rebels achieved one of biggest victories in UNLV football history, a 23–20 overtime win at 15th-ranked Arizona State on September 13, 2008. Sanford said it was the biggest win of his coaching career.

At the end of the 2009 season, UNLV announced it had fired Sanford. He left the Rebels after five seasons with an overall mark of 16–43.

Louisville
On December 22, 2009, Sanford was named offensive coordinator and assistant head coach at the University of Louisville.

After a lackluster offensive performance against Marshall, Sanford did not travel with the Cardinals for their next game, against North Carolina. He did not attend any of the practices in the week leading up to the game. Quarterbacks coach Shawn Watson served as offensive play-caller for that game. CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy reported that Sanford had been fired and replaced by Watson. However, The Courier-Journal's Rick Bozich reported that Sanford was still with the team, but may be demoted to a position coach. Bozich later confirmed that Sanford was no longer offensive coordinator.

The following Monday, Strong announced that Watson would serve as offensive coordinator for the remainder of the season, but that Sanford would remain on the coaching staff in another capacity. He also denied rumors that there had been an altercation between them during the week.

On October 22, Strong announced that Sanford was no longer with the program.

Utah State
Sanford joined the Utah State coaching staff in March of 2012. He serves as the assistant head coach and running backs/tight ends coach. Sanford previously worked with head coach Gary Andersen at the University of Utah.