Bill Belichick bombshell (or feigned interest) aside, the power-conference coaching carousel is just about to ramp up. Jobs at the highest level of college football belatedly started opening within the last two weeks, and none has been filled.
The reason this week has been quiet? Most of the hiring schools are waiting for conference championship games to end before formally going after replacements.
The North Carolina Tar Heels sent a ripple of surprise through the sport this week by having discussions with Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots. Sources tell Sports Illustrated that Belichick is intrigued by the new rules and landscape in the college game, which is more professionalized now, but he still has interest in the NFL where he is 17 wins away from becoming the winningest coach in league history. The Heels are expected to move ahead with interviewing college coaches in the coming days—as are the West Virginia Mountaineers, Purdue Boilermakers and Central Florida Knights.
Those programs are taxiing on the hiring runway, ready to take off as soon as games are finished Friday night and Saturday. Movement is expected to come quickly thereafter, industry sources tell SI. The aftermath of the three championship games Friday night should be when things start rolling.
The American Athletic Conference matchup pitting the Army Black Knights against the Tulane Green Wave could be of particular interest to North Carolina, sources say. Green Wave coach Jon Sumrall is 32–7 in three seasons as the head coach with the Troy Trojans and now Tulane, and he is on the radar of UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham.
Other schools are believed to have interest in Sumrall, who has been at Tulane just one season. Tulane is attempting to do what it can to keep their coach, according to NOLA.com. The school likely would need to increase its financial commitment to the new revenue-sharing reality that arrives in college football in 2025. One factor Sumrall will have to weigh is that he would likely have one of the Group of 5 favorites on the field next season and could have his pick of SEC openings in the next cycle, particularly if the Kentucky Wildcats or Florida Gators make a change.
In the Mountain West Conference game between the UNLV Rebels and Boise State Broncos, UNLV coach Barry Odom is considered a candidate of interest for multiple schools. The 48-year-old Odom is 19–7 in two seasons at UNLV, and was the head coach of the Missouri Tigers from 2015–19. Odom overlapped at Missouri with current West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker.
But Baker could also be keeping an eye on the Conference USA title game Friday night between the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Jacksonville State Gamecocks. The candidate of intrigue there for West Virginia is its former coach from 2001–07, Rich Rodriguez, now in his third year at Jax State.
Rodriguez took the Mountaineers to great heights, including three straight AP top-10 finishes from 2005–07, before making an ill-fated move to the Michigan Wolverines. He lasted three seasons there, then did six years with the Arizona Wildcats and worked as an assistant before getting a rebound job at Jax State. The 61-year-old West Virginia native has won everywhere he’s been other than Michigan, and a return home could help Baker with some old-guard WVU boosters who were perturbed at the ouster of men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins in ’23.
Rodriguez’s coaching opponent Friday, Western Kentucky’s Tyson Helton, is also drawing attention. Purdue could have the most interest and best chance to land Helton, who is 48–30 in six seasons and was a finalist the last time the job was open. The younger brother of former USC coach Clay Helton has routinely produced prolific passing offenses, which fits Purdue’s traditional style. A Helton hire also would reprise the Boilermakers’ successful move of 2017, when they brought in Jeff Brohm from Western Kentucky.
UCF is also believed to be in the market for an offense-oriented coach and could have interest in Helton, who has recruited effectively in Florida and around the South. There are a couple of well-respected coordinators working this weekend who could appear on the UCF radar as well in Will Stein of the Oregon Ducks and Andy Kotelnicki of the Penn State Nittany Lions.
Connecticut Huskies coach Jim Mora, who has guided that program to its first winning season since 2010, is believed to be ready to move and could be a name to watch at UCF if its search extends past coaches whose teams are playing this weekend.
Outside the Power 4, one coach who has his team in its conference title game could nevertheless be out of a job this weekend. Marshall Thundering Herd administrators and Charles Huff met Thursday to discuss Huff’s future with the school, and the Herd’s Sun Belt Conference title game against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns on Saturday could be the end of his tenure. Huff is 9–3 this season and 31–20 in four seasons at Marshall, but his contract is expiring and there might not be a second one. A fellow Sun Belt program, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, could be a potential landing spot if Huff doesn’t opt for a highly paid assistant coaching position on a Power 4 staff.
If Marshall moves on from Huff, North Carolina State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson would be a likely target as its next coach. The 52-year-old Gibson has deep roots in West Virginia, as a native of the state and a former assistant on multiple staffs at WVU. Gibson’s name has also come up at Charlotte, but others are believed to be in play there as well.
Yet another coach with ties to West Virginia could be in line for a new job. That’s the recently fired Mountaineers coach Neal Brown, who has had discussions with Appalachian State about its vacancy. Brown could be in play elsewhere at the Group of 5 conference level, too.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Football Coaching Carousel Primer: Names Beyond Bill Belichick to Watch.
