Texas Tech adds Orlando to staff

Texas Tech hired Todd Orlando as an assistant head coach and linebackers coach, reuniting Orlando with Tech coach Matt Wells, for whom he worked at Utah State.

Orlando most recently was Tom Herman’s defensive coordinator the past three years at Texas but was let go after the 2019 season. Before that he was defensive coordinator for Herman at the University of Houston. In other college news:

Rocky Long is retiring as San Diego State’s football coach after taking the Aztecs to bowl games in all nine of his seasons at the school.

He will be replaced by Brady Hoke, a former head coach at Ball State, SDSU and Michigan. Hoke will be elevated from defensive line coach.

Hoke hired Long as his defensive coordinator at SDSU in 2009. Long became head coach after Hoke took the Michigan job before the 2011 season. Hoke was fired after four seasons at Michigan and returned to the SDSU staff last fall.

Long was 81-38 with the Aztecs, including 10-3 in 2019.

George Perles, who coached Michigan State to a Rose Bowl victory in 1988 and was a key defensive assistant for the dominant Pittsburgh Steelers teams of the 1970s, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Michigan State hired Perles in 1983 to revive its beleaguered program. He did just that, winning Big Ten titles in 1987 and 1990. He led the Spartans past Southern California 20-17 on Jan. 1, 1988, for their first Rose Bowl win in three-plus decades.

Perles was an assistant coach for the Spartans before he was hired away in 1972 to coach the Steelers’ defensive line. He later was defensive coordinator and assistant head coach for a team that won four NFL titles in six years.