Former Emporia High football standout and current San Diego State assistant Joe Bob Clements has sent in his résumé to apply for the Emporia State football head coaching position, his father Bob Clements said Wednesday.
Bob Clements said he had talked with his son on the phone a few times but said he had not asked him about specifics.
“I’m kind of in the dark,” Bob Clements said, “and it’s probably the best place for me to be.”
Joe Bob, who turned 31 on Tuesday, is currently the defensive line coach for Division-I San Diego State University. This was his first season there after spending seven seasons as an assistant at Kansas State.
A 1994 graduate of Emporia High School, Joe Bob attended K-State to play football as a walk-on. In his five seasons, he worked his way into a starting role, notching 107 career tackles in 41 games. He also was named Big 12 honorable mention as a senior in 1998.
As an assistant at KSU, he moved from defensive backs coach to defensive ends coach and also recruiting coordinator.
Bob Clements said his son thought the ESU opening would be a good place to get his first head-coaching experience.
“He thinks so. What matters is what he thinks,” Bob Clements said. “He knows a heckuva lot more about it than I do, as far as a good fit and what’s a good path for people to take. He’s confident that he’d really like to have this job, and that it would be good for him.”
Joe Bob has been rumored to be one of the favorites for the position since it opened two weeks ago when Dave Wiemers resigned.
That thought was only strengthened when former Kansas State coach Bill Snyder was named to ESU’s coaching search committee. Joe Bob played and coached under Snyder at KSU.
“Joe Bob is a splendid young man,” Snyder said in a 1998 Gazette story. “He’s the kind of guy that does the things I like him to do and he’s a quality individual with excellent leadership skills. He’s a real blue-collar worker that’s been bounced around the (KSU) program, but has always done his job and never complained.”
Though father Bob wants to stay out of it, he does believe his son will at least receive a look from ESU.
“I think he’ll be a good candidate,” Bob Clements said, “but we’ll just have to leave it up to him.”
ESU head coaching opening has more than 40 applicants
Emporia State Athletic Director Kent Weiser said the department had received upwards of 40 applications for its football coach opening.
“Our goal now,” Weiser said, “is to get this down into a little bit more of a workable number.”
The search committee will meet today and narrow the field down to a pool of around 6-10 applicants. The plan is to speak with references from those candidates over the next few days, then come together next week to narrow it to a group of 2-4 finalists.
From there, the goal is to have sit-down interviews with each candidate and have the hiring of a new coach in a timely manner.
Though that tentative schedule has been set, Weiser said that the committee was prepared to take a few extra days if things didn’t go as smoothly as planned.
“Usually when you think something is on a fast track, you end up disappointed,” he said.
On Monday, former K-State football coach Bill Snyder made the trip to Emporia, getting the chance to look over the facilities and also meet with the committee for a couple hours.
Snyder will do most of his work for the committee in Manhattan, using e-mail, cell phones and overnight packages to sift through information and help the group come to a decision. Weiser said he and Snyder had talked nearly every day about material received and also potential candidates.