Mark Elder out as Eastern Kentucky football coach
Eastern Kentucky University continues to spin its wheels in its search for a return to football glory.
The Colonels have chosen to part ways with head coach Mark Elder, interim athletics director Mark Sandy announced Monday afternoon in a four-paragraph news release.
Elder, the 14th head coach in EKU history, completed his fourth season guiding the Colonels on Saturday with a 29-23 victory at Jacksonville State.
The Colonels finished the 2019 season 7-5 overall and 5-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference, coming in fourth place in the nine-team league.
“On behalf of the university and athletics department, I want to thank Mark for his hard work, diligent effort and contributions to EKU football,” Sandy said in the news release. “We all wish Mark and his family nothing but the best.”
Elder’s contract was set to expire in December.
Eastern Kentucky missed out on the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the fifth season in a row and has not won a postseason game since 1994.
Elder wrapped up his four years heading the Colonels program with a record of 21-24, including 15-16 in the OVC.
The 41-year-old head coach, previously an assistant at the University of Tennessee, was hired by EKU in December 2015 to replace Dean Hood.
The Colonels also fired Hood after a winning season.
Hood, who is now an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky, went 6-5 in 2015 and 55-38 in eight seasons as head coach.
Hood led Eastern Kentucky to FCS playoff appearances in 2014, 2011 and 2008, all resulting in first-round defeats. The Colonels last won a postseason football game in 1994, when it advanced to the national quarterfinals under Coach Roy Kidd.
EKU has made 21 postseason appearances all-time, the second most behind Montana’s 23 in FCS history. The program won national championships in 1979 and 1982 and finished as national runners-up in 1980 and 1981 under the Hall of Famer Kidd.
Elder’s teams went 3-8 in 2016, 4-7 in 2017, 7-4 in 2018 and 7-5 this season. He had served as the tight ends coach and special teams coordinator at the University of Tennessee from 2013-15.
The school’s bio for Elder, a Cincinnati native, credits the coach with driving “dramatic facility improvements” during his time as head coach.
The team updated its strength-and-conditioning facilities and its locker room and modernized and expanded Roy Kidd Stadium by adding 3,000 seats during Elder’s tenure.
Elder’s departure comes a month after Steve Lochmueller resigned as the school’s director of athletics. Lochmueller, who took over at EKU in April 2015, hired Elder.
The two had hoped to upgrade the program to a point it would be invited to a Football Bowl Subdivision conference.
That invitation never came.
Former Eastern athletics director Sandy, who retired as Ball State’s AD in 2018, is filling the opening created by Lochmueller’s resignation on an interim basis. EKU is conducting a national search for a full-time replacement, the school said.
A search for Eastern Kentucky’s next head football coach will begin immediately, Sandy said.
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 4:59 PM.