Tyler Hughes has been named the 20th head football coach at Minot State. Hughes, who currently serves as the head coach at Southern Virginia University, will replace Todd Hoffner.
"The past four weeks at Southern Virginia have been great and this was certainly a very difficult decision to make, but I could not pass up this opening at Minot State," Hughes said in a statement.
Prior to Southern Virginia, Hughes spent a year at Ohio State as quality control assistant coach. He was responsible for advance scouting, film analysis and data analytics for the Buckeyes. Hughes also served as head football coach at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, where he posted 20-4 in two seasons, including an 11-1 record in 2012. He was named the 2012 Western States Football League Coach of the Year.
"When Minot State unexpectedly lost their football coach last week, they were under a lot of pressure to find a replacement this late in the spring and subsequently made Coach Hughes an offer he couldn't refuse. We are sad to lose Coach Hughes, but wish him all the best in his future endeavours," said Southern Virginia's Director of Athletics Jason Lamb.
The MISU Athletic Department named Hughes as coach after Hoffner decided to return to his old job at Minnesota State Mankato after nearly three months into the post.
Earlier this month, an arbitrator concluded that Minnesota State wrongly fired Hoffner in connection with child pornography charges.
In April 2012, Hoffner was arrested and charged with two counts of child pornography after university authorities discovered photos of his naked children on an official mobile. About three months after his arrest, a judge ruled Hoffner not guilty by saying that the videos on his phone were innocent images of children, Miami Herald reports.
Despite dismissal of child pornography charges, Hoffner was suspended for 20 days and then reassigned to an administrative role. He was fired May 2013 for undisclosed reasons by the university President Richard Davenport.
In January 2014, Hoffner was hired at Minot State despite his ongoing arbitration against Minnesota.
