Kerwin Bell

VALDOSTA — Bringing a championship pedigree with him, Kerwin Bell is hoping to add to Valdosta State’s tradition of titles after being officially named the Blazers’ football coach Friday.

“I am excited for the opportunity to be the next head football coach at Valdosta State University,” Bell said in a school release announcing the hiring. “We will continue to build upon the great tradition of champions that has made Blazer Nation proud.”

Bell will be formally introduced at a Tuesday press conference at The Complex at 2:30 p.m.

“I am very pleased and excited to have Kerwin join Valdosta State University and our Blazer football program,” VSU athletic director Herb Reinhard said in the release. “He has enjoyed success as a head coach and he has considerable ties in Georgia and Florida. His teams are exciting to watch, and I am confident that he will build on our wonderful foundation of football success.”

That championship tradition at Valdosta State includes three Division II national championships (2004, 2007, 2012) with the past two captured under the leadership of David Dean. Dean’s success, which also included a Gulf South Conference championship in 2010 and a program-record 79 wins over the course of nine years, led to him accepting a position as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Georgia Southern on Jan. 6.

Sixteen days later, the Blazers found his replacement in Bell, a former standout quarterback at Florida. Following his stellar career with the Gators in which he threw for 7,586 yards and 56 touchdowns in earning Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year accolades in 1984 and, ultimately, induction into the UF Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997, Bell played professionally in the National Football League as well as the Canadian Football League and World League of American Football.

Following stints as the offensive coordinator for the Toronto Argonauts and the head coach at Trinity Catholic High School in Ocala, Florida, Bell took over the reigns at Jacksonville University, where he spent the past nine seasons. During that time, he led the non-scholarship Dolphin football program to three Pioneer Football League championships at the Division I Football Championship Subdivision level.

The Dolphins constructed a 66-35 mark under Bell’s tutelage, mainly built on a powerful offense directed by Bell, who served as his own offensive coordinator and quarterback’s coach. Four times Jacksonville averaged more than 400 yards per game including 522.7 yard average in 2013. That year, the Dolphins averaged 331.5 yards passing per game and 41.8 points per game. JU also threw for more than 300 yards per game in 2014 and three other times averaged more than 290 yards per game through the air. Jacksonville averaged 42.2 points per game in 2010, its highest mark under Bell, who turned around the Dolphins program.

Jacksonville hadn’t produced a winning record since 2001 prior to Bell’s arrival in 2007. It took the Live Oak, Florida, native that was raised in Mayo just two seasons to deliver a winning product.

That won’t be necessary at VSU, which went 9-3 this past season and advanced to the second round of the playoffs. The Blazers were 10-3 in 2014 and reached a national quarterfinal and won its third national title just two years prior to that.