Its Official: DeWayne Walker resigns

UPDATE (01/24/13 @11:50am) : ***It's Official*** - NMSU will be releasing a statement sometime later today regarding the resignation of DeWayne Walker as head coach of the Aggie football program. Walker has accepted a position as an assistant coach with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars.

Several web sites are reporting that Aggie head football coach, DeWayne Walker, has accepted a position with the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars as their secondary coach. Terms of his contract are unknown at this time.

Coach Walker's record at NMSU was 10-40 in four years. Last season, NMSU was 1-11 and was viewed by most as his most disappointing year at NMSU. His most successful year was 2011 where his Aggie football team finished the season at 4-9. The Aggies never finished higher than 7th place in the WAC.

On December 31, 2008, Walker was named head coach at New Mexico State University, becoming the seventh African American head coach of a major NCAA football program, and the second at New Mexico State University.

He now leaves the Aggies for greener pastures in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Aggie fans recall several years ago that coach Walker was rumored to be courted by Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks to join him at the NFL level, but coach Walker put those rumors to rest by releasing a statement that he was "...the coach of the NMSU Aggies", and nothing more.

Prior to the news breaking today about his decision to leave for the NFL, there were rumbling and concern within the Aggie football program due to assistant coaches leaving for other football programs.

However, things stabilized when it was discovered and reported here at CrimsonIllustrated.com, that former Aggie O.C., Doug Martin was coming back to NMSU following a quick stint at Boston College. Coach Walker replaced his current O.C., Jerry McManus with Doug Martin.

We then heard that offensive line coach Bart Miller had accepted a job at another college football program and that two other assistant coaches were also interviewing for other coaching jobs at various college football programs. As time went on, no announcements had been made about replacements for the vacant positions other than the O.C. job.

The timing of all these coaching changes couldn't be any worse for NMSU, in terms of stability within the football program and just as important, recruiting. National Letter of Intent Signing Day is February 6, 2013. How this will affect recruiting is to be determined, but it's never good.

There's also speculation that the writing was on the wall within the NMSU football program. It all seems to point back to the re-hiring of O.C. Doug Martin. Martin, who had been a college football head coach for seven years at Kent State beginning in 2004, compiled a record of 29-53 (.547). The speculation swirling around the NMSU campus and web sites is that he could or should be the obvious choice to take over for Walker.

No official word has been released by NMSU as of this writing on either coach.

CI