Oklahoma State football: Big news on the coaching front

Big news on the OSU coaching front. No, not Mike Gundy staying or going to Tennessee.

Purdue has hired a coach. Kent State’s Darrell Hazell has joined aboard the Boilermaker train. It’s yet to be known if Hazell will coach Purdue against OSU in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

Last Friday night in Dallas, a group of us from The Oklahoman ate dinner at Campisi’s, then watched the Kent State-Northern Illinois game, which we thought would have a big effect on the Big 12 bowl slots. Turns out we were wrong; the NIU-Kent State winner was headed to the BCS either way. But anyway, we sat at the bar and watched the end of the game and discussed the Kent State coach, whose name we didn’t even know. But someone googled him up.

Hazell is a 48-year-old veteran coach — he looks about 33 — who has put in his time. He grew up in Cinnaminson Township, N.J., and played at Muskingum, a small college in Ohio. Then Hazell began a coaching odyssey that took him to Oberlin (1986-87), Eastern Illinois (1988), Oberlin (1989-94), Penn (1992-94), Western Michigan (1995-96), Army (1997-98), West Virginia (1999-00), Rutgers (2001-03) and Ohio State (2004-10).

Finally, Hazell became a head coach, at woebegone Kent State. The Golden Flashes went 5-7 last season and 11-2 this year. They are headed to the GoDaddy.com Bowl against Arkansas State. But Kent State almost was in the Orange Bowl against Florida State, if they had won that overtime Mid-American Conference championship game.