Before leaving for the FBS level, Eric Schmidt spent six seasons at North Dakota, where he most recently served as the defensive coordinator in 2009.
After a season at San Diego State as their defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, Schmidt is returning to the FCS level as North Dakota's new head coach.
A formal announcement of the hire was made last night.
After starting his career at the high school level as the head coach at Crookston HS (MN) for four seasons, he landed at North Dakota coaching their linebackers.
The former North Dakota All American linebacker would leave to join the staff at Southern Illinois, starting off as outside linebackers before moving to defensive line and eventually taking over as special teams coordinator and inside linebackers coach.
In 2014, he returned to North Dakota as their defensive play caller and worked with both inside linebackers and outside linebackers as well as defensive line.
He left for an opportunity to get the FBS level in 2020 as the special teams coordinator / defensive line coach at Fresno State. After two seasons there he took the same post at Washington, working with the Husky defensive ends.
Schmidt takes over a Fighting Hawks program coming off a 5-7 season.
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