Tim DeRuyter - Football Coach

Tim DeRuyter

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
HeadFootballCoach@mail.fresnostate.edu

Tim DeRuyter is set to embark on his fifth season as head coach at Fresno State and has transitioned the Bulldogs into one of the major players in the Mountain West.

DeRuyter (pronounced da-ROOT-er) took over a team that went 4-9 the year before he arrived and turned the tables by leading Fresno State to back-to-back Mountain West championships and back into the top 25 rankings in 2013. With Fresno State joining the Mountain West in 2012, DeRuyter's Bulldogs got right two work establishing their brand as a force in the conference by winning league titles in 2012 and 2013. Before the DeRuyter era launched, Fresno State had not won a conference championship since 1999 - a drought of 13 years -- and hadn't won consecutive league titles since 1992 and 1993.

After losing five players to the NFL off of the 2013 team, including All-Americans Derek Carr, Davante Adams and Austin Wentworth, Fresno State came back in 2014 and won the West Division to reach the MW Championship game for a second consecutive season.

The 2014 team started out 0-3 with consecutive losses to Power-5 programs (USC, Utah and Nebraska), all three that were ranked at some point during the season, but rebounded to win the West and reach a bowl game. No other Bulldog team in school history had rebounded to win six games and get bowl eligible after an 0-3 start to a season. From 1980-2014 there had been 496 total FBS teams that started 0-3 and the 2014 Bulldogs became just the 21st of that group to make a bowl, playing in the Hawai`i Bowl for the second time in three years.

Those are two of the three bowl appearances DeRuyter has led the Bulldogs to - the other being the 2013 Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl - and he has a 29-23 overall record, including a 19-6 record at home in Bulldog Stadium. He was hired as Fresno State's 17th head coach in program history on Dec. 14, 2011.

DeRuyter directed Fresno State to one of its finest seasons in program history in 2013. Fresno State went 11-2, won the inaugural Mountain West Championship game and matched the school record for wins in a season. The `Dogs were ranked as high as No. 13 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and closed out the Bowl Championship Series era ranked No. 20 in the final BCS standings, the highest of any non-automatic qualifying/BCS conference team that year.

Player success under DeRuyter is well documented. Fourteen Bulldogs have been named first-team All-Mountain West in his first four seasons, which is the second-most first-team honorees of any school in the conference. Carr in 2012 and 2013 was named the MW Offensive Player of the Year and Phillip Thomas in 2012 the league's Defensive Player of the Year. Along with the All-Americans Adams, Carr, Thomas and Wentworth, DeRuyter has seen six of his Bulldogs be drafted along with another 14 that made training camps or signed as free agents with NFL teams. The five draft picks over the 2014-15 NFL Drafts were the most from any non-Power 5 program in the FBS.

Safety Phillip Thomas in 2012 was named an unanimous All-American and was a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award after leading the nation in interceptions with eight. Thomas went on to be a fourth round draft pick of the Washington Redskins and started games for them towards the end of the 2014 season.

Prior to coming to Fresno State, DeRuyter was the assistant head coach/defensive coordinator at Texas A&M where he coached one of the elite defensive players in the game in Von Miller. Miller, who in addition to earning All-American honors, was awarded the 2010 Butkus Award given annually to the nation's most outstanding linebacker. He went on to become the second overall pick of the Broncos in the 2011 NFL draft and led Denver to the Super Bowl 50 world championship.

DeRuyter came to Fresno State with 22 years of coaching experience. His last game coaching at Texas A&M was in the role as interim head coach for the Aggies in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, a game Texas A&M won 33-22 over Northwestern on Dec. 31, 2011. In 2011, Texas A&M led the nation with 51 sacks and the Aggies were second in the Big 12 by only allowing 106.0 rushing yards per game.

DeRuyter hails from a pair of Hall of Fame coaches, as he was mentored by Fisher DeBerry at Air Force and by Chris Ault at Nevada. DeRuyter was a 2010 nominee for the Broyles Award that honors the nation's top assistant coach, when he was working under former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike Sherman.

Before coaching the Aggie defense, DeRuyter spent three years as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at his alma mater, Air Force. He also held the title of associate coach in 2008 and 2009.

A native of Long Beach, Calif., DeRuyter was born on Jan. 3, 1963 and graduated from St. John Bosco High School (Bellflower, Calif.) in 1981.

He holds a bachelor's degree in management from Air Force (1985) and a MBA in market strategy from Regis University (1992).

Upon his graduation from the Air Force Academy, he served seven-and-a-half years of active duty in the Air Force.

DeRuyter and his wife, Kara, have a son, Jake, a recent graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a daughter, Christina, who will be a senior at Texas A&M.