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Former Mount Union head coach and current athletic director Larry Kehres has been selected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Kehres built one of college football's all-time great programs in Alliance, Ohio. In 27 seasons at Mount Union, he amassed a record of 332 wins, 24 losses and three ties with 11 NCAA Division III national championships.

His .929 winning percentage is best in college football history at all levels.

Along with those national titles, his teams won 23 Ohio Athletic Conference Championships while posting 21 undefeated regular seasons.

He was named American Football Coaches Association Regional Coach of the Year a record 17 times, AFCA National Coach of the Year eight times and OAC Coach of the Year six times.

The coaching awards are not the only signs of respect his peers have for him as he has been an active member of the AFCA who has served on the board of directors and competed a term as AFCA president.

He also lent his coaching talents to international competition in the summer of 2011 as he served as offensive coordinator for the US National Football team as they won the gold medal in the World Championships in Austria.

Kehres grew up just a few minutes north of Mount Union's campus in Diamond, Ohio, and graduated from Ravenna Southeast High School. He came to Mount Union, played quarterback on the football team and earned a business administration degree in 1971.

He served as a graduate assistant coach at Bowling Green State in 1971-72, earning a master's degree in health and physical education. In 1973, Kehres got his first head coaching job as the football coach at Johnstown Monroe High School in Johnstown, Ohio.

He returned to Mount Union the following year, spending the next 11 seasons as an assistant coach, serving mainly as the offensive coordinator before taking over as head coach prior to the 1986 season.

In 1985, he was named athletic director at Mount Union and held both positions from 1986 until stepping down as head football coach in 2012. 

He and his wife, Linda, have three grown children -- Vince, Faith and Jan -- and seven grandchildren.

Larry Kehres as head football coach at Mount Union

• Overall Record: 332-24-3 (.929)
• OAC Record: 228-8-3
• Overall Home Record: 188-9-3
• Overall Road Record: 131-10
• Neutral Site: 11-5
• Playoff Record: 77-12
• 220 All-OAC First Team selections
• 260 All-American selections
• 23 Academic All-Americans
• 5 winners of the Gagliardi Trophy given to the top all-around football player in NCAA Division III
• 2 Academic All-Americans of the Year for Division III Football

The new tradition of announcing the College Football Hall of Fame class in conjunction with the CFP National Championship began in 2015 before the inaugural CFP title game in Dallas. The 2017 College Football Hall of Fame Class will be inducted at the 60th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 5, 2017, at the New York Hilton Midtown. The inductees will also be honored at the National Hall of Fame Salute at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Jan. 1, 2018, and they will be recognized at their respective collegiate institutions with NFF Hall of Fame On-Campus Salutes, presented by Fidelity Investments, during the fall. Their accomplishments will be forever immortalized at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

A coach becomes eligible three full seasons after retirement or immediately following retirement provided he is at least 70 years of age. Active coaches become eligible at 75 years of age. He must have been a head coach for a minimum of 10 years and coached at least 100 games with a .600 winning percentage.