Davidson College hires Saj Thakkar, 33-year-old Division II coach, as next football HC
Saj Thakkar, a 33-year-old Division II head coach, is the next leader of Davidson football.
The Wildcats’ new head coach comes to Davidson from Bentley University, in the Boston suburbs. Thakkar guided the program to an 8-2 campaign this fall in his second season at the helm and was announced as the 29th head football coach in Davidson history Tuesday morning.
“We will work to become a top FCS football program while providing the best scholar-athlete experience in the country,” Thakkar said in a release. “I look forward to meeting and working with our outstanding alumni and campus partners as we strive towards a common goal. Our fans and supporters can expect to see a team that upholds the highest standard of the game. We will make the entire Davidson community proud to be Wildcats!”
Thakkar — whose surname is pronounced “thuh-CAR” — will be formally introduced in a news conference at 11 a.m. Friday inside the Gallery 18 hospitality area at Davidson College Stadium. He succeeds Scott Abell, who is the new coach at Rice in the American Athletic Conference.
Thakkar, who guided Bentley to back-to-back second-place finishes in the Division II Northeast-10 Conference in 2023 and 2024, owns a 14-6 overall record (including 11 wins in conference play) as a head coach.
He also served as an assistant on the offensive staffs at Harvard, SUNY Maritime and Fitchburg State — his alma mater, where he was a quarterback at the Division III school in Massachusetts.
“Saj is a great American success story,” Tim Murphy, Harvard’s head coach from 1994-2023, said of his former assistant. “His work ethic, football IQ and love of the game are important components in his ability to recruit, coach and motivate student-athletes.”
