J.D. Brookhart helped guide Akron to a MAC title 20 years ago, nabbed a MAC Coach of the Year honor and even helped the Zips to a bowl berth in Detroit's Motor City Bowl.
Now, after rougly a decade away from the game, Brookhart is set to return to coaching.
And he'll do so in a familiar spot. Sources tell FootballScoop that Brookhart is going to rejoin the Akron football staff, where he will serve as Joe Moorhead's wide receivers coach.
Brookhart and Moorhead previously teamed up together as colleagues at Akron across several seasons in the early-2000s, when Brookhart posted back-to-back winning campaigns in his first two years at the helm of the Zips program.
A former wideout at BYU and Colorado State, Brookhart also coached in the NFL with the Denver Broncos and had assistant coaching posts at Pittsburgh and Colorado before and after his run atop the Akron program.
Among Brookhart's proteges at Pitt? Larry Fitzgerald, who won the 2003 Biletnikoff Award as college football's top receiver in his second season under Brookhart.
Brookhart left college coaching in 2013 to work for a Christian organization, the Denver Post reported almost 11 years ago.
But Moorhead and Brookhart are set to reunite with now Moorhead the head coach and in need of turning around the Akron program.
The Zips are scheduled to open their 2024 season with daunting back-to-back Big Ten road games at Ohio State (Aug. 31) and Rutgers (Sept. 7). They'll open their home schedule Sept. 14 against FCS program Colgate.