Wofford head coach Mike Ayers watches from the sideline during the first half of an NCAA college football game against South Carolina on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017 in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina defeated Wofford 31-10. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)Wofford's Mike Ayers announced his retirement Wednesday afternoon after 30 seasons as the Terriers' head football coach.
Ayers had 218 victories in 33 years as a head coach, having spent his first three at East Tennessee State. He moved back to Wofford - where he served as a defensive coordinator from 1980 to 1982 - in 1988, leading the Terriers to a 207-139-1 record. That included five Southern Conference championships and eight Football Championship Subdivision playoff appearances - six this decade, including this season when his final team finished 10-3 and won the SoCon before falling 42-10 to North Dakota State in the FCS quarterfinals.
He was the 2003 Eddie Robinson coach of the year, given to the best coach in the FCS.
"I'm very blessed to have had the position of head football coach for 30 years," an emotional Ayers said Wednesday. "Today is a bittersweet day. I still love the game, still love my guys, but it's time for us to go a different road."
Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Wade Lang will serve as the interim coach.
Ayers' retirement means that three of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's football opponents will be breaking in new coaches in 2018. East Tennessee State's Carl Torbush recently retired after a total of eight seasons as a head coach, the last four at ETSU. He returned to revive the Buccaneers program in 2014 after it had been disbanded 11 years prior, and after bringing in an entire freshman class and redshirting them the first season he went 11-22 in three seasons with a 4-7 record in 2017.
Torbush also was credited with North Carolina's 1997 Gator Bowl victory as the interim coach for the Tar Heels once Mack Brown left for Texas, then coached the team to a 17-18 mark in three seasons, the first of which ended in a Las Vegas Bowl victory. He was the head coach at Louisiana Tech in 1987.
In addition, Tennessee Tech's Marcus Satterfield was fired recently after a 1-10 season in 2017. Satterfield, who had two stints at UTC, the last as an offensive coordinator from 2009 to 2012, was 6-16 in two seasons with the Golden Eagles.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.