After eight seasons leading Toledo, Jason Candle is as committed as ever
TOLEDO — It’s just after 11 a.m. on a Wednesday in late February, and Jason Candle is locked in.
His Toledo football program is wrapping up spring practice No. 2 in 2024, in what will be a season of change for the Rockets. And as practice finished, Candle delivered a simple message to his squad: Treat each practice, workout and meeting with the focus and intensity that they would a game.
“There’s 12 days out of the year that there’s a football game and there’s 353 days outta the year that there’s not a game,” Candle said to On3. “And we’re gonna coach just as hard on those days and make sure these guys are doing what they’re supposed to do.”
That Candle is still marshaling a MAC program after eight full seasons — one that he’s twice led to 11 wins — is something of an aberration amid a profession where countless Group of 5 head coaching peers leave for bigger head coaching jobs. Or, in a new trend, Power 5 coordinator jobs.
But having built a successful football ecosystem — Toledo is 65-35 under Candle — where he finds plenty of gratification and satisfaction in his work, Candle won’t be lured away easily. The allures of more money and resources to try to build a new, higher-ceiling version of what he’s already got working at Toledo haven’t swayed him much, either. And watching him run a spring practice, it’s clear the Rockets head man has more fuel to burn to propel them forward.
“I like to teach,” Candle said. “I mean I never really got into this profession to chase status or money or anything like that. It was always to impact people. And that’s just how I try to make sure I keep my focus. And I think if you do a really good job with that, good things will happen for your team and your organization.”
So far, mostly good things have happened to Toledo under Candle. The Rockets haven’t had a losing season during his tenure. Toledo won nine or more games four times, including the pair of aforementioned 11-win campaigns. The Rockets won MAC championships in 2017 and 2022 under Candle, and were upset in the MAC championship in 2023 after going 11-1 in the regular season.
And through his tenure, which has featured the advent and widespread adoption of NIL and the transfer portal, Candle has gone about building his program in a bit of an old-school way: Identifying players who fit the program and school, who Candle and Co. can develop over years into, perhaps, a top-level player. Players like All-American corner and projected first round NFL draft pick Quinyon Mitchell, who came to Toledo as an under-recruited defensive back from Florida.
Mitchell exemplifies the program in another way, as he had ample opportunity to transfer during the past offseason. Toledo is active in the NIL space, but can’t go toe-to-toe with the spending power of various Power 5 collectives. Mitchell never appeared to waiver, sticking with the Rockets for his final year and excelling.
All told, the program at Toledo has been rather portal resistant, and Candle and Co. have countered various departures with down transfers and the like. In the 2024 winter transfer period, Toledo had seven players depart but signed six transfers. The transfer portal actually netted the Rockets a second-team All American defensive lineman for 2023 in Judge Culpepper, who transferred in from Penn State a few years prior.
“I think for us, like, OK, we have two All American players this year,” Candle said. “We got Quinyon Mitchell who was homegrown and played here all this entire time and maximized his potential. And now we got Judge Culpepper who transferred and played D tackle here from Penn State, and he was the other one and he maximized his potential. And both of those guys will be pros.”
Candle has had various opportunities at Power 5 programs arise, and he has done his due diligence to at least hear out whatever the chance might be. But so far, none have passed muster.
But seeing that he can produce NFL draft picks, win double digit games and, presumably, compete on the national stage in the upcoming expanded playoff at Toledo, Candle is happy to keep at it with the Rockets.
“On the surface, I think right, wrong or indifferent, I think people see money as the reason to do everything,” Candle said. “And you know, that’s not the reason to do everything for me. You know what I mean? I’m confident in our ability to put a good product on the field, confident that we can help our players reach their full potential. I mean, we’re gonna have a guy picked in the first round of the draft.”
Candle also appreciates how hands-on he gets to be at Toledo, a luxury that might not be afforded to high-level Power 5 head coaches. He makes sure he covers his bases with donors, NIL and all the trappings of being the program CEO, but he still gets time to coach football on a granular level.
Candle shared how he took it upon himself to coach up the slot receivers. He took them out of the bigger positional meeting and worked with them in a smaller setting.
Being able to get in the weeds coaching football and having the time to pick up that slack are some of Candle’s favorite aspects of the gig.
“I think wherever I can fill in and wherever I can pick up and wherever I’m needed,” Candle said, “happy to fill in and do that. And really for the help of the offense, but also my own enjoyment too, because that’s what I really love to do.”
And in any career, there are personal reasons for staying at or leaving a job. Candle, an Ohio lifer, is no different.
Born and raised in Salem, Ohio, Candle went on to play his college football as a wideout at the Division III level, first for Geneva and then powerhouse Mount Union. He joined the Mount Union staff a year after finishing his playing career, and eventually was hired on staff at Toledo in 2009. He got the head coaching job ahead of the 2016 season after serving as the interim for the bowl game following the departure of now-Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell (another Mount Union alum).
Along with his own ties to Ohio, Candle knows any choice he makes to jump to a new job will have a far-reaching ripple effect, from his wife and three young children to his assistants and their families and the players on the roster.
The program and football ecosystem that Candle has carefully built and finely attuned over the years, he knows, can be undone in a fraction of the time it took to shape.
“I got a family, I got coaches that have family. I got a great group of kids in the locker room that I recruited to, to be here and to do some really, really cool things here,” Candle said. “So this is not a Jason Candle-only decision. This is everybody around and every — the things that are and the people around you that you affect by the decisions you make.”
And with all that in mind, Candle has been plenty content to stay locked in at Toledo.