Former Syracuse football longsnapper and member of the search committee for a new athletic director Sam Rodgers said Mark Coyle’s experience running a successful football program “definitely played a factor in his hire.”

“(A) successful tract record at big-time programs,” Rodgers said of Coyle’s exploits via text. “Dedication to the student athletes. Also like a good fit to the upstate New York culture.”

Syracuse announced Coyle as its new athletic director late Friday evening. Coyle had been the athletic director at Boise State since 2011. Cyole will formally start his duties at Syracuse on July 6.

Rodgers said that SU Chancellor Kent Syverud “charged” the search committee to find 2-3 candidates to interview this summer with enough time to make a hire by the start of the fall semester.

The committee conducted initial interviews before final candidates were passed along to Syverud.

Rodgers also said his basketball background played a factor as well, noting that Coyle worked at Kentucky, a perennial basketball powerhouse, before becoming the athletic director at Boise.