The National Football Foundation announced the 2014 class of the College Football Hall of Fame on Thursday, headlined by the likes of Alabama's Derrick Thomas and TCU's LaDanian Tomlinson. In addition to the 14 players joining the Hall are two coaches: Mike Bellotti and Jerry Moore.
After playing tight end and wide receiver at UC Davis from 1970 to 1972, Bellotti immediately joined the UC Davis coaching staff in 1973. He left to become the offensive coordinator at Cal State Hayward from 1977-78, then spent a year calling plays at Weber State in 1979 before returning to Cal State Hayward from 1980-83. Bellotti got his first head coaching job at Chico State in 1984, where he guided the Wildcats to a 21-25-2 record in five seasons.
Bellotti became Oregon's offensive coordinator under Rich Brooks from 1989-94, and then was elevated to head coach in 1995. Under Bellotti, the wheels of Oregon's rise to a national power began turning. He took the Ducks to the Cotton Bowl in his debut season of 1995 and, after a 6-5 season in 1996, led Oregon to bowls in 11 of his final 12 seasons. Oregon registered three top-10 finishes and a half-dozen top-20 finishes, highlighted by a 2001 campaign in which the Ducks posted an 11-1 record with a Pac-10 championship, a Fiesta Bowl win and a No. 2 final ranking, the highest in school history. In all, Bellotti posted a 116-55 at Oregon before becoming the Ducks' athletics director and later as a college football analyst at ESPN.
Best known culturally for engineering the iconic upset of then-No. 5 Michigan in 2007, Jerry Moore built a dynasty at Appalachian State from 1989-2012. He led the Mountaineers to an astounding 215-87 record with 18 playoff appearances and three straight national championships from 2005-07. In addition to App State's three-peat, Moore's clubs also reached the NCAA Division I-AA semifinals in 2000 and 2009, and were quarterfinalists in 1994, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2008 and 2010. Simply put, Appalachian State would not be making the transition from FCS to FBS without Moore's continued success.
Before arriving at App State, Moore posted an 11-11 record as the head coach at North Texas (then known as North Texas State) and a 16-37-2 record as Texas Tech's head coach from 1981-85. Moore retired with a 242-135-2 overall record.
Bellotti and Moore join recent coaching inductees Barry Alvarez (Wisconsin) and Gene Stallings (Texas A&M, Alabama) of the 2010 class, Lloyd Carr (Michigan) and Fisher DeBerry (Air Force) of 2011, Philip Fulmer (Tennessee), Jimmy Johnson (Oklahoma State, Miami) and R.C. Slocum (Texas A&M) of 2012, and Wayne Hardin (Temple, Navy) and Bill McCartney (Colorado) of last year's class. A coach must have at least 10 years and 100 games with at least a .600 winning percentage to his credit to become eligible for induction to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Bellotti and Moore will be inducted during the National Football Foundation's annual dinner at the Waldof-Astoria in New York City on Dec. 9.