Current position | |
---|---|
Title | Head coach |
Team | Cal Poly |
Conference | Big Sky |
Record | 6–16 |
Biographical details | |
Born | Woodland, California, U.S. | February 25, 1967
Playing career | |
1986–1989 | Washington State |
1991 | Raleigh–Durham Skyhawks |
1992 | New York/New Jersey Knights |
Position(s) | Center |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1993 | Eastern Washington (VA) |
1994–1997 | Eastern Washington (OL) |
1998–1999 | Eastern Washington (OC/OL) |
2000–2007 | Eastern Washington |
2008–2011 | Washington State |
2012–2013 | San Francisco 49ers (OA) |
2014 | South Florida (OC/OL) |
2015 | Iowa State (VA) |
2016–2018 | Sacramento State (AHC/RGC/OL) |
2019 | UC Davis (VA) |
2020–2022 | Cal Poly (OL/RGC) |
2023–present | Cal Poly |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 68–96 |
Tournaments | 2–3 (I-AA/FCS playoffs) |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
2 Big Sky (2004, 2005) | |
Awards | |
3× Big Sky Coach of the Year (2001, 2004, 2005) 1x All Pac-10 Second Team (1989 OL) 1x Sporting News All-America honorable mention (1989) | |
Paul Louis Wulff (born February 25, 1967) is an American football coach and former player. In December 2022, he was appointed head coach at California Polytechnic State University. Wulff previously served as the head coach at Eastern Washington University from 2000 to 2007 and at Washington State University from 2008 to 2011. As a student-athlete, he played on the offensive line at Washington State during the late 1980s, earning honorable mention All-American honors following his senior season in 1989. [1]
Since his exodus from Eastern Washington in December 2007, Sacramento State in 2017 is the only college football team Paul Wulff has been a part of that finished a season with a winning record. [2]
Born in Woodland, California, Wulff graduated from Davis Senior High School in Davis in 1985. Following his senior year, Wulff was selected to the Optimist All-Star Football Game held in Hughes Stadium. [3] He accepted a scholarship from head coach Jim Walden to attend Washington State University in Pullman, and redshirted his first year in 1985. [4] Wulff started four games at guard for the Cougars as a redshirt freshman in 1986. Later a center, he was a starter on the offensive line from 1986 to 1989 under three different head coaches: Walden, Dennis Erickson, and Mike Price.
During his junior year in 1988, the Cougars were led by Erickson and quarterback Timm Rosenbach, and scored an upset over top-ranked UCLA on the road, the first of five consecutive wins to close out the season. WSU tied for third in the Pac-10, and won the Apple Cup and the Aloha Bowl. It was Washington State's first bowl game in seven years and their first post-season victory in 63 years, since the Rose Bowl in January 1916. [5] WSU finished at 9–3 and sixteenth in both major polls. [6]
In his senior year under Price, the Cougars won six of their first seven games and were ranked fifteenth in mid-October. [7] [8] After two close losses, [9] Wulff had an emergency appendectomy on Halloween and missed the final two games, [10] [11] both defeats, and WSU finished at 6–5 with no bowl. [12] Still, Wulff was selected for All-Pac-10 Second Team status and Sporting News All-America honorable mention in 1989. [13] [14]
Following graduation in 1990, Wulff signed as an undrafted free agent with the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL), but was released during the 1990 preseason. [15] [16] During the spring of 1991, he played for the Raleigh–Durham Skyhawks in the newly created World League of American Football (WLAF). The team went winless (0–10) in its inaugural season and was folded. Wulff continued to play for another season in the league with the New York/New Jersey Knights, before ending his active career.
Wulff began his coaching career in 1993 as a volunteer assistant under head coach Dick Zornes at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. Zornes retired after that season and assistant coach Mike Kramer was promoted to head coach, who hired Wulff to a full-time position. [4] [17] After four seasons as the Eagles' offensive line and strength coach, Wulff added offensive coordinator duties in 1998. When Kramer departed for conference rival Montana State after the 1999 season, the school named Wulff his successor. [18] During his eight seasons as EWU's head coach, Wulff compiled an overall record of 53 wins and 40 losses; the Eagles won two Big Sky Conference co-championships (2004 and 2005) and appeared three times in the Division I-AA (FCS) playoffs. Wulff earned Big Sky Coach of the Year honors in 2001, 2004, and 2005. [19]
Wulff returned to his alma mater after the 2007 season when he was named the 31st head football coach at Washington State on December 10. [1] He was the second alumnus to head the Cougar football program, after Phil Sarboe in the late 1940s. [1] After compiling a 9–40 record during four losing seasons at WSU, Wulff was fired on November 29, 2011, [20] and left with the lowest winning percentage (.184) in school history. [21] His teams only won four games in Pacific-10 Conference play, including a winless 0–9 conference mark in 2009—part of an overall record of 1–11, the worst in the school's modern football history. The next three head coaches Washington State hired were Mike Leach, Nick Rolovich, and Jake Dickert, who would all go on to have at least one winning season while coaching the Cougars. [22] On February 19, 2024, All Coug'd Up (a Washington State news and opinion site sponsored by the FanSided Network) published an article titled "The 3 worst head coach hires in Washington State football history"; Paul Wulff ranked the worst. [23] The article opened up with an opening statement, "A former Cougar himself, Paul Wulff is among the worst coaches in collegiate football history, much less in the Washington State record books." [24]
In May 2012, Wulff joined former Pac-10 foe Jim Harbaugh as an offensive assistant with the San Francisco 49ers, with multiple duties on that side of the ball.
In January 2014, he was hired as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at the University of South Florida in Tampa. [25]
In February 2016 he was hired as the Sacramento State assistant head coach/offensive line coach. [26]
Following almost three years as an offensive line assistant for the Mustangs, Wulff was named head coach at Cal Poly in December 2022 by Athletic Director, Don Oberhelman. [27] Cal Poly's first season under Wulff saw no improvement from the previous season in the win-loss column in conference play. Cal Poly's lone conference win came in a one score victory over a winless Northern Colorado team. [28] Cal Poly's two nonconference victories came against a San Diego team which does not award athletic scholarships to football players, and against a non NCAA or NAIA Lincoln team which has been likened to "the college Bishop Sycamore". [29] Cal Poly finished the 2023 season with the 11th (out of 12 teams) ranked scoring offense in the Big Sky Conference with 20.55 points per game. [30]
Cal Poly's second year under Wulff did not see any improvement from Wulff's first year in the overall win-loss column. [31] One of Cal Poly's wins in 2024 came against a Division II Western Oregon Wolves team that finished their 2024 season one game above .500. [32] Cal Poly's two other wins in 2024 came against conference foes Northern Colorado and Sacramento State that finished their 2024 seasons with a combined record of 2-14 in conference play. [33] Cal Poly finished the 2024 season with the 11th (out of 12 teams) ranked scoring offense in the Big Sky Conference with 20.73 points per game. [34]
Wulff has a record of 1–3 versus in-state rivals UC Davis and Sacramento State as Cal Poly's Head Coach. [35]
As a youth, Wulff's mother went missing. [4] [36] Although her body was discovered in 1979, 48 days after her disappearance, it was not correctly identified until 2020. [37] The youngest of four children, he went to live with relatives, first with an uncle, then with his oldest brother. [4] [38]
Wulff met his first wife Tammy Allen at WSU and they married in 1993. Diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in early 1997, she battled for over five years, [39] [40] but succumbed in March 2002. [41] Wulff and his second wife Sherry have three children. [4] [36]
Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eastern Washington Eagles (Big Sky Conference)(2000–2007) | |||||||||
2000 | Eastern Washington | 6–5 | 5–2 | 5th | |||||
2001 | Eastern Washington | 7–4 | 3–4 | 5th | |||||
2002 | Eastern Washington | 6–5 | 3–4 | 4th | |||||
2003 | Eastern Washington | 6–5 | 3–4 | 6th | |||||
2004 | Eastern Washington | 9–4 | 6–1 | T–1st | L NCAA Division I-AA Quarterfinal | ||||
2005 | Eastern Washington | 7–5 | 5–2 | T–1st | L NCAA Division I-AA First Round | ||||
2006 | Eastern Washington | 3–8 | 2–5 | T–6th | |||||
2007 | Eastern Washington | 9–4 | 5–2 | 2nd | L NCAA Division I Quarterfinal | ||||
Eastern Washington: | 53–40 | 32–24 | |||||||
Washington State Cougars (Pacific-10/Pac-12 Conference)(2008–2011) | |||||||||
2008 | Washington State | 2–11 | 1–8 | 9th | |||||
2009 | Washington State | 1–11 | 0–9 | 10th | |||||
2010 | Washington State | 2–10 | 1–8 | 10th | |||||
2011 | Washington State | 4–8 | 2–7 | 6th (North) | |||||
Washington State: | 9–40 | 4–32 | |||||||
Cal Poly Mustangs (Big Sky Conference)(2023–present) | |||||||||
2023 | Cal Poly | 3–8 | 1–7 | 11th | |||||
2024 | Cal Poly | 3–8 | 2–6 | 10th | |||||
Cal Poly: | 6–16 | 3–13 | |||||||
Total: | 68–96 | ||||||||
National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth |
Timm Lane Rosenbach is an American college football coach and former professional gridiron football player. He is the co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach for California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a position he has held since 2024. Rosenbach was the head football coach at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado, taking the position at the Division II school in December 2014 and remaining there until he resigned in December 2017 to become the offensive coordinator at Montana. He played from 1989 until 1995 in the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL). Rosenbach attended Washington State University and was selected in the first round of the 1989 NFL supplemental draft.
Michael Bruce Price is an American former college football coach. He was the head football coach at Weber State College from 1981 to 1988, Washington State University from 1989 to 2002, and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) from 2004 to 2012. Price returned to UTEP as interim head coach for the final seven games of the 2017 season. He was hired at the University of Alabama in December 2002, but was fired before coaching a game in 2003.
The Washington State Cougars are the athletic teams that represent Washington State University. Located in Pullman, Washington, WSU is a member of the Pac-12 Conference in NCAA Division I. The athletic program comprises ten women's sports and seven men's intercollegiate sports, and also offers various intramural sports.
Keith Steven Gilbertson Jr. is a retired American football coach and player. He was the head coach at the University of Idaho (1986–1988), the University of California, Berkeley (1992–1995), and the University of Washington (2003–2004), compiling a career college football record of 55–51. Gilbertson retired in 2011 as a coach.
The Washington State Cougars football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Washington State University, located in Pullman, Washington. The team competes at the NCAA Division I level in the FBS and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12) Known as the Cougars, the first football team was fielded in 1894.
The 1987 Wyoming Cowboys football team represented the University of Wyoming in the 1987 NCAA Division I-A football season. It was the Cowboys' 92nd season and they competed as a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). Led by first-year head coach Paul Roach, the Cowboys compiled a 10-2 record, finishing first in the WAC. The team played their home games on campus at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyoming, and outscored their opponents 426 to 271. As WAC Champions against Iowa in the Holiday Bowl, Wyoming lost by a point to finish at 10–3.
The 1988 Eagle Aloha Bowl was a college football bowl game, the fourth of seventeen in the bowl season of the 1988 NCAA Division I-A football season. The seventh edition of the Aloha Bowl, it was played on December 25 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The game matched the #14 Houston Cougars of the Southwest Conference against the #18 Washington State Cougars of the Pacific-10 Conference.
The 1988 Washington State Cougars football team was an American football team that represented Washington State University in the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) during the 1988 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their second and final season under head coach Dennis Erickson, the Cougars compiled a 9–3 record, and outscored their opponents 415 to 303.
The 1986 Washington State Cougars football team was an American football team that represented Washington State University in the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) during the 1986 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their ninth and final season under head coach Jim Walden, the Cougars compiled a 3–7–1 record (2–6–1 in Pac-10, eighth place) and were outscored 312 to 221.
The 1987 Washington State Cougars football team was an American football team that represented Washington State University in the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) during the 1987 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their first season under head coach Dennis Erickson, the Cougars compiled a 3–7–1 record, and were outscored 356 to 238. Home games were played on campus at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington.
The 1989 Washington State Cougars football team was an American football team that represented Washington State University in the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) during the 1989 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their first season under head coach Mike Price, the Cougars compiled a 6–5 record, and outscored their opponents 351 to 268.
The 1993 Washington State Cougars football team was an American football team that represented Washington State University in the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) during the 1993 NCAA Division I-A football season. In their fifth season under head coach Mike Price, the Cougars compiled a 5–6 record, and outscored their opponents 271 to 248.
The 1993–94 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1993–94 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by seventh-year head coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1986–87 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1986–87 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by fourth-year head coach Len Stevens, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1987–88 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1987–88 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by first-year head coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1988–89 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1988–89 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by second-year head coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1989–90 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1989–90 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by third-year head coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1991–92 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1991–92 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by fifth-year head coach Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 1994–95 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 1994–95 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by first-year head coach Kevin Eastman, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.
The 2003–04 Washington State Cougars men's basketball team represented Washington State University for the 2003–04 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by third-year head coach Dick Bennett, the Cougars were members of the Pacific-10 Conference and played their home games on campus at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, Washington.