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Word leaked out late Tuesday night that Hazell, 48, had accepted the Boilermakers job despite a day of back-and-forth communication to the contrary, but Hazell still felt the need to personally tell everyone at Kent State and thank them.
After a meeting with his coaching staff at 6:15 a.m. to inform them of his impending departure, Hazell met briefly with his team at 6:30 a.m.[/b]

“Literally, I was in the room for five minutes,” he said. “I made a statement, I asked if they had any questions and there were no questions. I told them I loved them and I walked out.”

Although saddened, the players responded with a loud round of applause.

“That was by far the coolest exit I have ever seen,” junior defensive lineman Richard Gray tweeted afterwards.

A few hours later, Hazell walked into a third-floor loge that overlooks the basketball court, wading through a packed crowd of media, athletic department workers and other university employees on his way to the table at which he’d spent many Monday mornings doing his weekly news conference.

During an emotional 16-minute news conference, Hazell expressed his gratitude to Kent State for giving him his first head-coaching job.

“There’s obviously a lot of mixed emotions when something like this happens,” Hazell said. “I got the offer yesterday at about 4:30 and accepted the job last night about 9 o’clock to go be the head coach of Purdue University.

“I’m excited about that new chapter in my life, but obviously it’s always hard to leave people that you love. I made some tremendous relationships here in the last two years. There’s a lot of great people in this Kent State community and people that I’ll never forget, people who helped me develop as a head coach and I’m surely going to miss a lot of these people around here.

“I think we did something special around here because of a lot of people. It wasn’t just me; there were a lot of people who had their hand in the success that we’ve had at Kent State.”

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Earlier in the morning, Hazell said there’s no reason for the players to overreact to his leaving.

“Kent State is a great place,” he said. “Everything they need is right here, educationally, socially, on the football field … You select a university because of the university, not because of the football coach.”