updated 11:10 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2005

On his first day as San Diego State’s football coach, Chuck Long promised to deliver a winning team at a school that has had precious few in recent years.

“We’re going to win championships now,” said Long, the former Iowa quarterback who’s been Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator the last four seasons. “It’s a place that’s ready to do it. I can feel it. I think it’s going to be exciting times.

“We hope everybody’s going to be along for the ride, because it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Long said Saturday at his introductory news conference.

The 42-year-old Long signed a five-year contract with an annual salary of $700,000, with bonuses that can add an additional $300,000 per year. Long’s deal calls for a $100,000 bonus if he leads the Aztecs to a BCS bowl game.

Long’s lofty win-now goal matches that of new athletic director Jeff Schemmel, who believes the Aztecs can be a Top 10 team. Long’s salary is a sign of the school’s increased commitment to winning. Long’s predecessor, Tom Craft, made $400,000 annually. Craft was fired Dec. 5 after going 19-29 in four years, including 5-7 this season.

However, it’s going to take some doing. Long inherits a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 1998, when it went 7-5 and played in the Las Vegas Bowl. The Aztecs have played in only two bowls in the last 15 seasons.

SDSU last won a conference championship in 1986, the year after Long finished second to Bo Jackson in the closest Heisman Trophy voting ever, and led Iowa to the Big Ten championship and the Rose Bowl.

“It’s been a long time,” said Long, who landed his first head coaching job over nine other candidates. The other finalist was LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher.

“He expects to win right away and that’s something everybody in this building is going to need to commit to, and I can see that happening,” quarterback Kevin O’Connell said. “I think we’re going to feel new heights in this program that we haven’t felt in a long time.”

Long has been on Bob Stoops’ staff at Oklahoma for six seasons. He will not call plays for Oklahoma in the Holiday Bowl against Oregon on Dec. 29 in San Diego, but is expected to help out.

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Oklahoma will practice at San Diego State.

“I’m going to be watching them from my window,” Long said. “I can open my window and yell, ’Hey!’ But Bob has said, ’Why don’t you come out and help.’ Whether it will be on the sidelines or not, I don’t know.”

In a statement, Stoops said: “It is not hard to trace the impact he had on Sooner football with productive offenses and decorated players. He has been a tremendous asset to this university. “With our congratulations we can say without hesitation that San Diego State has hired a great head football coach.”

Long was Oklahoma’s passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach when the Sooners won the national championship in 2000, and was offensive coordinator when Jason White won the 2003 Heisman and when Adrian Peterson and White finished 2-3 last season.

“He’s a wonderful, wonderful football coach, just like he was a wonderful player,” O’Connell said.

“Watching some of the things that Oklahoma has done, I mean, Heisman Trophy quarterbacks, and no matter who’s played quarterback for them, no matter who’s been involved in that offense, nothing but success has come out of it.”

Although this is Long’s first head coaching job, he has an extensive resume as a player and assistant coach.

Long got his coaching start at Iowa in 1995 after playing eight seasons in the NFL, with the Rams and Lions. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

“I see opportunity here,” Long said. “I guess what’s helped me is I’ve been part of turnaround programs in the past. As a player at Iowa, we had come off 20 losing years in a row, and we turned it around early on.

“It seems like we’ve been part of building up a foundation as opposed to going into something and keeping it going. It’s always been from the ground up.”

Long said he met SDSU alums Willie Buchanon, Fred Dryer and Brian Sipe.

“You look at San Diego State history ... man, there’s been a lot of players that come through here. We need to find a way to have a championship team now. And we’re going to do that.”

Long, who threw for 10,461 yards in his Iowa career, would like to meet Don Coryell, who coached at SDSU from 1961-72 before taking his passing theories to the NFL, including the San Diego Chargers.

“My goal is to have the same type of legacy — and I know it’s big — as Don Coryell,” Long said. “That’s what I want to happen, to bring San Diego State back to that era, so to speak.”

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