New Mexico State coach Jerry Kill steps down
NMSU was 17-11 in Kill's two seasons with the team
The Jerry Kill era is over at New Mexico State.
The school announced Saturday that Kill is stepping down and wide receivers coach Tony Sanchez will be the team’s next head coach.
"This year has been tremendously difficult for me, and I gave it everything I had physically, mentally and emotionally," Kill said in a statement. "New Mexico State holds a special place in my heart as it marks the end of my journey as a head coach. While I'll remain involved with the Aggies, I recognize the need for a head coach with a lot of energy. Good luck to Coach Sanchez, the student-athletes and New Mexico State University."
Kill has been New Mexico State’s coach for the past two seasons as the program had two of its best seasons in years. The Aggies went 7-6 in 2022 and won the Quick Lane Bowl for just the second bowl win in program history. This season, New Mexico State went 10-5, winning 10 games for the first time since 1960.
The Aggies lost the New Mexico Bowl 37-10 to Fresno State on Dec. 16.
After that game, Kill unleashed a postgame rant about the University of New Mexico’s handling of pre-bowl preparations. Kill said that New Mexico had been reluctant to let New Mexico State use its indoor facility ahead of the bowl game because of an incident earlier in the year when NMSU QB Diego Pavia allegedly urinated on the New Mexico logo at the facility.
New Mexico State was Kill’s first head-coaching job since he stepped down at Minnesota midway through the 2015 season because of health reasons. Kill had multiple seizures on the sideline while at Minnesota.
Minnesota was 29-29 in Kill’s four-plus seasons in charge. He came to the Gophers after a successful spell at Northern Illinois. The Huskies went 11-3 in 2010 as Kill was hired as Minnesota’s coach at the end of the regular season.
Before joining NMSU, Kill was an assistant at TCU and was the team’s interim head coach for the final four games of the season after Gary Patterson’s departure.
Sanchez was an offensive assistant with Kill at TCU in 2021 and came to New Mexico State ahead of the 2022 season. Before he was at TCU, Sanchez was the head coach at UNLV from 2015-19 after a six-year stint as a high school football coach in Las Vegas. UNLV was 20-40 in Sanchez’s tenure.
