Toledo Football Has a New Coach, but Old Rocket Habits Stay

A coaching change that looked risky on paper

Jason Candle ran Toledo for 10 seasons, went 81-44 and won two MAC titles, according to ESPN's report on his move. In early December 2025 he left for UConn on a six-year deal. For a MAC program that kind of departure usually means a reset year.

Toledo's answer was not a big-name coordinator. It was Mike Jacobs, a native of Maumee, the suburb on Toledo's southwest side, who had been winning at the Division II and FCS levels. ESPN put his record at the time of the hire at 94-23 across stops at Notre Dame College, Lenoir-Rhyne and Mercer, with no losing seasons. He also played offensive line at Ohio State. His statement on the day of the announcement, as reported by WTVG, was short:

I will admit my first reaction to an FCS hire was skepticism. The roster work changed my mind faster than the scoreboard did. When the university announced the 2026 schedule on March 25, it noted that the Rockets had added 11 transfers who earned all-conference honors at their previous schools, including defensive end Andrew Zock, the 2025 FCS Defensive Player of the Year. A coach who knows the FCS map knows exactly where those players are.

What stayed the same at the Glass Bowl

Toledo simply wins at home. Before the San Diego State game, the athletics department's notes said the Rockets had won eight straight at the Glass Bowl by an average of 35.4 points. The 41-16 result made it nine. The only loss so far came on the road, in the opener at Michigan State.

Junior quarterback John Alan Richter is the other constant worth knowing. He threw for 699 yards across his first two seasons combined. Against Temple he threw for 429 yards and four touchdowns, both career highs, and picked up MAC Offensive Player of the Week plus three national weekly honors. Against San Diego State, Sports Illustrated's game story had him at 16 of 22 for 284 yards and three scores before he sat down midway through the fourth quarter. Running back Connor Walendzak, who scored the winning touchdown in overtime against Temple, had six total touchdowns after three games.

So is it a fluke? Not entirely, in my view, but the schedule has been kind. Central Connecticut is an FCS team, and the first three home games came before any MAC opponent. MAC coaches picked Toledo third in the preseason poll, behind defending champion Western Michigan and Miami, which feels about right until someone proves otherwise.

Why a team in northwest Ohio is called the Rockets

Here is the detail that makes me like this program more than any box score. In 1923, Toledo played a heavily favored Carnegie Tech team in Pittsburgh. Local sportswriters were surprised to learn the visitors had no nickname at all. They pressed James Neal, a Toledo student working in the press box, to supply one.

Toledo lost 32-12. Neal still called his team the "Skyrockets," impressed by how hard they had played, and the writers trimmed it to Rockets. Before that the team had been called the Blue and Gold, the Munies, for municipal university, and Dwyer's Boys, after coach James Dwyer. Over the years other suggestions floated around, according to the university's own history page: Toreadors, Commodores, Turtles, Jeeps and the Bancroft Highwaymen. Somewhere there is an alternate history with a Toledo Turtles helmet, and I am glad we do not live in it.

The history that still sets the bar

Every Toledo coach is measured against two things. The first is the 35-game winning streak of 1969 through 1971, with quarterback Chuck Ealey starting all 35 wins, which Wikipedia's program history lists among the longest streaks in major college football. The second is the MAC trophy count: 12 titles, from 1967 through 2022. Candle added two of them. Jacobs has added none yet, and nobody in Toledo will pretend otherwise.

The dates that decide the 2026 season

If you only circle one date, circle October 24. Western Michigan is the defending league champion and was picked ahead of Toledo, so that game will say more about Jacobs's first season than the Temple comeback did. The Bowling Green game on Wednesday, November 18, matters for a different reason. That rivalry is dead even after 90 meetings, and the Falcons have won the last two.

A Toledo student once named this team after a loss, because he liked how it played. A little over a century later, the new coach grew up a few miles from the stadium, and the team is still making people in the press box reach for fireworks words.