After losing Jon Sumrall to Tulane, the Troy Trojans football program is turning to Notre Dame offensive coordinator Gerad Parker as his replacement.
Parker, 42, previously coached with former Troy head coaches Neal Brown, who is now at West Virginia, and Sumrall. The new Trojans head coach served as Purdue's interim head coach for the final six weeks of the 2016 season. He is coming off two seasons with the Fighting Irish under the tutelage of head coach Marcus Freeman.
In his playing days, Parker was a four-year letter-winner for the Kentucky Wildcats, where he played with Sumrall.
Parker will formally be introduced as the new head coach on Tuesday at a 1 p.m. press conference.
"Gerad Parker is a proven winner with an infectious personality and passion for success who has significant experience at some of the best programs in America," Troy director of athletics Brent Jones said. "He competed in the SEC as a player, has been a recruiting coordinator in the Big Ten and has coordinated highly productive offenses in the Big 12 and now at Notre Dame. He has an extremely diverse background that spans from coaching in high school, the FCS and throughout FBS in the SEC, American, Big Ten, Sun Belt, ACC and Big 12."
Read more from Troy's announcement here.
The Trojans are preparing to play in the Birmingham Bowl versus Duke on December 23.
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