Dec. 5, 1999 SportsLine wire reports

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- It took just five days for Michigan State to remove the interim tag from Bobby Williams' title Sunday and make him the football coach of the bowl-bound Spartans.

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He succeeds Nick Saban, who last Tuesday accepted a big-money offer to become LSU's coach.

After Saban left, Michigan State made Williams the interim coach and said he will coach the No. 10 Spartans (9-2) in the Florida Citrus Bowl against Florida on New Year's Day.

On Sunday, the Spartans dropped the interim part of his title.

The university said details of a five-year contract still were being finalized with Williams, who called his job "CEO of football" at the school.

"I'm very proud to be in the honored position I'm in," Williams said during a news conference 13 hours after being told the job was his.

The 41-year-old Williams has coached seven 1,000-yard rushers in his decade as the Spartans' running backs coach. He had been promoted to associate head coach before this season.

Last week, when he was made interim coach, Williams received a standing ovation from the team. At the time, he told his players how much he wanted to win the Citrus Bowl.

"Not for me, for you," Williams said. "Everything from this point on is moving forward. We're going to get it done."

This will be the Spartans' first New Year's Day bowl game since the 1989 Gator Bowl.

Michigan State president Peter McPherson said promoting Williams amounted to "in effect, a group package," given that other Spartan assistants under Saban have opted to be part of Williams' staff.

"I don't think I've been part of anything here when there's been such loud, strong emotional support" for the decision to give Williams the job, McPherson said.

LSU lured Saban, a former NFL assistant, from the Spartans with a five-year contract worth about $1.2 million annually. That made him one of the nation's top-paid coaches, along with Bobby Bowden of Florida State, Steve Spurrier of Florida and Phillip Fulmer of Tennessee.

Saban earned $697,330 a year at Michigan State, including his $203,530 base salary and the $493,000 he made from other sources, including his TV show. His LSU contract calls for a base salary of $250,000, with the balance coming in radio, TV and Internet appearances, plus other pay.

Before arriving at Michigan State, Williams spent four months in 1990 as a receivers coach on the Kansas coaching staff of Glen Mason. Now at Minnesota, Mason was interviewed Thursday for the Spartans' job that Williams got on Sunday.