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Notre Dame OC Michael Haywood (left) is Miami's new head coach

Haywood, 44, will remain on Notre Dame's staff for the team's game against Hawai'i in the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl on December 24. He will be formally introduced as the RedHawks new head coach on December 30.

"First of all, I'd like to thank President Hodge and Brad Bates for the tremendous opportunity to become head coach at Miami University," said Haywood. "It's an institution with outstanding academics and a storied football tradition. The Cradle of Coaches, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, Bill Mallory, Jim Tressel ... what an unbelievable coaching tradition. I'm so excited about joining the Miami family, with a fan and alumni base that is nationwide. Ohio is a great state for high school football, with tremendous coaches and unbelievable student-athletes. We are looking forward to developing a relationship with the high school coaches and to recruit their student-athletes to Miami University. I can't wait to get started."

Bates said that Haywood's experience and success at five different Bowl Championship Series (BCS) schools made him the leading candidate at Miami.

"Mike's experience with scholar-athletes at the United States Military Academy, the University of Texas and the University of Notre Dame has instilled in him high intellectual expectations for our students," Bates said. "His mentors have included some of the most successful coaches in college football and have given him the organizational, recruiting and leadership skills to inspire our team, program, campus and fans. And Mike's competitive success in the MAC, Big Ten, Southeastern Conference and Big 12 provides him with the knowledge and pragmatism to surround himself with a great staff to develop champions at Miami University. We are thrilled to have Mike Haywood as `our' head football coach."

Since 1995, Haywood has been associated with three Top Ten teams and six other Top 25 clubs. His mentors have included former Coaches of the Year Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Charlie Weis and Lou Holtz.

Through Haywood's four seasons as the offensive coordinator and running backs coach at Notre Dame (2005-08), the Fighting Irish have averaged nearly 27 points per game. He took over the majority of Notre Dame's offensive play calling in 2008 and the result was an additional 103 yards per game over the previous season.

Haywood has coached running backs since 1994 at four different schools and tutored rushers that received All-America and all-conference accolades. He helped develop the talent in players that etched their name in their respective school's records book and produced future National Football League players in Darius Walker, Cedric Benson, LaBrandon Toefield, Domanick Davis, Kevin Faulk, Rondell Mealey and Cecil Collins.

Haywood's return to familiar turf in South Bend was the latest stop in a successful career as one of college football's top assistant coaches for the past 22 years.

A four-year football letterman at Notre Dame (1982, 1984-86), Haywood has been a collegiate coach for the past 22 years. He joined Weis's staff following two years at Texas under Brown. Prior to that, he was running backs coach at LSU for coaches Gerry DiNardo and Saban.

Haywood is no stranger to the Mid-American Conference, having served as an assistant coach at Ohio (1991-92) for Tom Lichtenberg and at Ball State (1993-94) for head coach and former Miami player Paul Schudel. He was Coach Jim Young's assistant for two seasons (1989-90) at Army, and began his coaching career at Minnesota (1988) as a graduate assistant for Coach John Gutekunst.

Haywood has coached every position and has coordinated offense, special teams and recruiting. He has recruited the Midwest as well as Florida, Texas, Louisiana, California, Canada, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Haywood, a native of Houston, TX, played flanker during his freshman season at Notre Dame (started five games and caught 13 passes for 128 yards in 1982), then moved to cornerback where he was a significant contributor and starter from 1984-86 (13 career starts, 78 tackles, five interceptions, two blocked kicks). Recruited by Gerry Faust, Notre Dame's coach during Haywood's senior year was Lou Holtz.

Haywood is a 1986 graduate of Notre Dame with a bachelor's degree from the College of Arts and Letters.