Troy hires Notre Dame OC Parker as head coach

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Gerad Parker has been named the next head coach at Troy, the school announced Monday.

Parker is a veteran coach who has served as Purdue’s interim coach and has been an assistant coach at places such as Penn State, West Virginia and Duke.

Parker has a similar background and personality traits to the past two coaches to have success at Troy — Neal Brown and Jon Sumrall. Parker played at Kentucky with both of them and worked with Brown for two years as an assistant at West Virginia.

He replaces Sumrall, who won back-to-back Sun Belt titles before leaving for Tulane recently. Sumrall went 23-4 in his two seasons at Troy.

Parker is a high-energy coach who brings a wide swath of experience. Per sources, Troy officials were attracted to his background as an offensive coordinator and as a recruiting coordinator. He’s the second football hire at Troy for athletic director Brent Jones, who brought in Sumrall.

He leaves one of the highest-profile coordinator jobs in the sport. Notre Dame just landed former Duke star quarterback Riley Leonard in the NCAA transfer portal, which should help lure a top coordinator. This will mark Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman’s third offensive coordinator in his three years at Notre Dame.

Troy has won or shared eight Sun Belt titles since 2006. The school is at or near the top of the league in its financial investment in football, which allowed the Trojans to go lure a coordinator from a major-conference school.

Troy chancellor Jack Hawkins has long prioritized athletics success — and football investment — as paramount to the school’s growing profile.

Troy will play Duke in the Birmingham Bowl on Saturday.