After showing significant improvement in his third season as football head coach, San Jose State extended Brent Brennan’s contract for three years, through the 2024 season.
With only three combined wins in his first two seasons, Brennan and the team were one of 20 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams to win four more games in 2019 than in the previous year.
“The wins and losses are the lagging indicator,” SJSU President Mary Papazian said. “They come at the end once everything is moving in the right direction.”
Papazian said that despite the rough first two years, she was confident that Brennan was the right coach for the job.
“It’s all about character, it’s about integrity, it’s about engagement with our student-athletes, it’s about commitment to our academic mission, it’s about creating opportunity and doing it with quality,” she said.
In his new contract, Brennan will receive a salary of $850,000 annually.
According to TransparentCalifornia.com, in 2018, Brennan received nearly $400,000 in total pay and benefits. However, SJSU Athletics said that Brennan’s 2018 base salary was $605,000. The Spartan Daily is investigating the discrepancy.
SJSU football has not had a coach stay longer than five years since alumnus Claude Gilbert, who served as head coach from 1984 until the university fired him in 1989.
Brennan, on the other hand, said his goal is to stay at SJSU for 15 years, recognizing the value of consistency.
“The consistency of the teaching, the consistency of the mentorship, the consistency of the love is going to remain,” he said. “It’s not going to be stopped and started midway through their process. And I think that’s so critical.”
It’s not just consistency at the head coach level though, Athletics Director Marie Tuite said.
“One of the benefits of what’s happened in the last few years is that Coach Brennan has been able to keep his coaches together, and that’s really really important for consistency,” she said.
In Brennan’s third season, the consistency began to pay off.
The team beat the University of Arkansas in September, marking the first time SJSU has ever beaten a Southeastern Conference (SEC) opponent. It was also its first win against a Power 5 conference school since 2006.
A month later, the Spartans avenged their humiliating 52-3 defeat against Army at Levi’s Stadium a year ago, taking down the Black Knights at West Point, 34-29.
SJSU struggled in the next three games against Mountain West Conference opponents, losing two of those games after holding fourth-quarter leads.
But the team rallied in its final game of the season against rival Fresno State, winning 17-16 on a late touchdown to take back the Valley Trophy for the first time since 2016.
Finishing with a 5-7 record, the Spartans found themselves one win short of being eligible for a bowl game.
Building upon this year’s improvement, Coach Brennan has one clear goal for next season: “Get to a bowl game.”
