Bob Stitt’s back to finish what he started.

His return to Colorado School of Mines as the football coach has a new goal: an NCAA championship.

“Bob Stitt 2.0 is coming in knowing we can win a national championship instead of thinking we never could,” Mines athletics director David Hansburg said while reintroducing Stitt as the next football coach Tuesday.

During his first go-round as the Mines coach from 2000-14, Stitt built the program into a RMAC heavyweight that found tougher sledding in the Division II playoffs. Since then the school has made a financial commitment to help the program to a pair of national title games.

Stitt replaces Pete Sterbick, who took the offensive coordinator job at Montana State. Stitt returns as the program’s winningest coach with a record of 110-62 at Mines. When he first arrived in 2000 the Orediggers had gone almost 80 years without a coaching tenure that ended with a winning record. It had no NCAA postseason berths or conference titles in 42 years. It was arguably the worst program in the country.

His foundation the second time around is far stronger. Mines has won five of the past six conference titles and spent almost 70 straight weeks in the national rankings.

Stitt was inducted into the Mines Athletics Hall of Fame in 2021. He coached Mines to three NCAA tournaments, postseason runs that ended against heftier offensive and defensive lines.

“We got to a certain point making the playoffs and it was (like) the Sun Belt vs. the Big Ten. We just couldn’t line up up front and compete with the best teams in the country,” Stitt said.

That’s changed. When Stitt watched the 2023 Orediggers reach the national championship game, he marveled at the size of their offensive and defensive lines. Stitt said his first act of business is cultivating the culture and connecting with a decorated senior class.

“(The culture is where) they don’t want to mess up because they don’t want to let their teammates down. They don’t want to mess up because they don’t want to let their position coach down,” Stitt said. “That’s a culture and we have to make that happen very quickly for those seniors. You can’t say, ‘Well, we want to be good two or three years down the line.’

“No, we want to be really good next year.”