Former West Texas A&M Head Coach Hunter Hughes was named the Vandal Sams/Nickels Coach in January 2024.
Hughes coached as a member of the staff for the New Orleans Breakers as a DBs and quality control coach. He helped the Breaker to a 7-3 record and a second-place finish in the south division. The Breakers led the South Division in points allowed last season.
Before coaching in the USFL, he spent seasons as the head coach at DII West Texas A&M in the tough Lone Star league. He carried a six-year record of 32-29, including a 2021 season that saw the Buffs finish 7-4 and 5-2 in the Lone Star. He coached John Cummings and Tobias Harris to DII All-American honors and Six players under his tutelage earned CoSIDA Academic All-American honors.
He came to West Texas A&M after 10 seasons as an assistant coach for Colorado State-Pueblo where he was the defensive coordinator for a dominant stretch that saw the ThunderWolves win six straight RMAC titles and the 2014 DII National Championship.
He was named the 2011 Football Scoop Division II Coordinator of the Year and guided the ThunderWolves’ defense that led all of Division II in scoring defense (12.8 points allowed per game), passes intercepted (29), defensive touchdowns (7) and turnovers gained (43). The defensive line totaled 3.8 sacks per game to finish fourth nationally and CSUP ranked 13th in total defense allowing just 296.8 yards per game.
He led CSUP to shutout Minnesota State-Mankato 13-0 in the 2014 championship game, the first shutout in the DII Championship game in 17 years.
In the first four years Hughes was at CSUP, the ThunderWolves finished in the top 25 nationally in points allowed three times including ninth in 2010. In 2008, Hughes squad allowed the 37th-fewest points in the nation during the program’s first season of competition.
Hughes started his college coaching career as graduate assistant at Colorado during 2003 season where he worked alongside Eck as a GA. He stayed at Colorado for three seasons before moving working at Tennessee in 2006-07.
He is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State where, as a student, he was the head equipment manager. He was a high school coach and teacher in Tennessee before joining Colorado’s staff as an analyst before taking the GA position.
