After serving as Sam Houston State’s head football coach for the past five seasons, Todd Whitten has been relieved of his duties, according to Bearkats athletic director Bobby Williams.

The announcement was made Monday afternoon following the end of the year meeting between Williams and Whitten about the state of the football program. The Bearkats closed out the season with a 28-20 loss at Texas State on Saturday.

Williams said the job would be posted as soon as possible and he would like to have someone hired within the next few weeks.

“I think there are a variety of different factors involved in the decision to relieve coach Whitten of his duties,” Williams said. “When you look at the program and the direction you want to go, you look at our recruiting philosophy, the strength of the program and the philosophy offensively, defensively and special teams.

“A lot of times people just look at it from a wins and losses standpoint, but you have to look at the philosophy of the program and see if that has to do with the outcomes. When you look at the entire body of work, it just led me to believe that it was time and we needed a fresher approach and outlook. Todd handled it professionally, very classy and I support him in his endeavors in the future.”

Whitten was hired on Jan. 20, 2005 following the retirement of long-time head coach Ron Randleman. He previously had been the head coach at Tarleton State, accumulating a 45-23 record in six seasons, but that success didn’t carry over to Sam Houston State.

During Whitten’s tenure, the Bearkats went 25-28 and had only one win against a team that finished the season with a winning record (Nicholls went 6-5 in 2007).

Sam Houston did finish second in the Southland Conference in 2006 and 2007, Whitten’s only two seasons with winning records. But the Bearkats finished fifth in 2005, sixth in 2008 and fifth this season after going 3-4 in league play and 5-6 overall.

“I want to thank all the players and the assistant coaches on our staff for all their hard work over the last five seasons,” Whitten said in a statement. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with some outstanding young men.”

When Whitten was hired, the Bearkats were behind schedule with only a month to prepare for national signing day because Sam Houston had advanced to the semifinals of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

That is why Williams wants to bring somebody on board as quickly as possible so there will be more time to recruit. A formal selection committee was formed to narrow the list of candidates down to three or four finalists to replace Randleman, but that won’t be the case this time, which should speed up the process.

“We have to go through the proper human resources procedures. I have talked to Dr. (James) Gaertner and we will make sure to handle that process the way it is supposed to be,” Williams said. “We want to move as quickly as we can because of recruiting. We have to get this done before the holidays in the next few weeks.

“It’s hard to put a timetable on it, but it will be as soon as I can. We will go through the normal five-day posting, take some calls and do some behind-the-scenes evaluations to check some potential candidates.”

Williams said Monday that, as of now, the rest of the Sam Houston State football coaches are currently still on the staff. Their status will depend on who is hired in the upcoming weeks.

“I talked to the staff after I talked to coach Whitten and I have not made any changes there,” Williams added. “A lot of that will be determined in the next few weeks, specifically on who we hire. I’ve told the assistant coaches to come to work and proceed like we would under normal circumstances, but that they were free to look for other positions and that I would support them and help them out any way I could.

“I also told them there could be a possibility to stay on here. I would like that and I think the continuity would help in the transition. The last transition, we didn’t evaluate that staff fairly and that was my responsibility. That is why I would like to keep a few coaches if we can.”