Football | 1/24/2019 4:04:00 PM

MOORHEAD, Minn. — Minnesota State University Moorhead football coach was named the Don Hansen Football Gazette Super Region 4 Coach of the Year last week, and the award put him in some exclusive company.

Laqua was one of only four coaches in Division II football to earn Super Region Coach of the Year honors, joining Mike Jacobs of Notre Dame, Kerwin Bell of Valdosta State and Tyler Fenwick of Missouri S&T. Bell led Valdosta State to the NCAA Division II National Championship.

Laqua was the first NSIC Coach since 2014 — when Minnesota State's Todd Hoffner won the honor — to earn Super Region Coach of the Year honors.  He is the first NSIC football coach to win the region and league coach of the year honors in the same year since 2013.

Just completing his eighth year as MSUM head coach, Laqua is the first Dragon coach to earn a Region Coach of the Year honor since Chad Walthall did so in 2014-15.

In November, Laqua was named the NSIC Coach of the Year, becoming the first Dragon head football coach to earn the award since 1994. Since 2015 MSUM has had coaches of the year in men's basketball (Chad Walthall, 2015), women's basketball (Karla Nelson, 2017) and now football. MSUM is one of only three league schools to have Coaches of the Year in those sports during that time.

Laqua guided the Dragons to an 8-3 mark in 2018, the most wins in a season for MSUM since 1991. He led the team to its best finish in the NSIC (tied for third) since the league expanded to 16 teams in 2012.  Laqua, now in his eighth year as MSUM head coach, has led the Dragons to 20 win over the past three years, their best three-year stretch since 1991-93.