Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Steve Sarkisian faces a crucial year three as Texas’ head coach.
Steve Sarkisian faces a crucial year three as Texas’ head coach this upcoming season. Continue reading “ESPN lists Texas coach Steve Sarkisian on “hot seat watch” for 2023″
Easily the most experienced coach of Notre Dame’s reported OC candidates, Ludwig currently calls Utah’s offense.
Notre Dame has a vacancy at offensive coordinator after Tommy Rees took the same position on Nick Saban’s Alabama staff in early February. Where will Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame turn for their new offensive coordinator?
Here at Fighting Irish Wire we’ll be giving you a bio and career summary of some of the coaches that emerge as candidates. We’re also making an effort for some guest contributors who have either followed or covered each potential candidate’s coaching careers.
The most experienced of the known candidates is Utah coach Andy Ludwig. He has more than 30 years of college football coaching experience — some great and some not so hot.
Why is Ludwig a legit candidate and what does he offer as a specialty? Our fourth installment of this offensive coordinator examination looks at Ludwig. Here is what you need to know about the current Utah offensive coordinator.
Tom Herman is a candidate for the Cincinnati head coaching job.
Cincinnati has an unexpected coaching search on its hands after Luke Fickell announced he is heading to take the job at Wisconsin. Continue reading “Report: Former Texas HC Tom Herman ‘in the mix’ for Cincinnati job”
Texas assistant Brennan Marion is in the mix for the Tulsa job.
Texas wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Brennan Marion is being linked to the Tulsa head coaching job. Continue reading “Texas WR coach Brennan Marion emerges as a candidate for Tulsa HC job”
The Tigers’ search reportedly centers around Murray State’s Matt McMahon and North Texas’ Grant McCasland.
LSU’s season is now over after the team’s disappointing loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in a No. 6 vs. No. 11 upset against Iowa State.
That means that the focus can now shift entirely to replacing Will Wade, who was fired on March 13 ahead of the Tigers’ postseason. It’s well known that athletics director Scott Woodward likes to make big, splashy hires, but that may not be so easy this time around.
The basketball program doesn’t carry the same level of prestige that football does, and that’s before you take into account potential impending NCAA sanctions. It seems unlikely that LSU will be able to sway a proven head coach from a power conference team, and it makes sense that per ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, the search is now centering around two mid-major prospects.
LSU is the biggest job left on the board, although potential NCAA sanctions have likely dissuaded some of the big-name options from getting involved. One seemingly far-fetched rumor that won’t go away is Tony Bennett going to Baton Rouge, but sources close to Bennett have maintained all week there is nothing of substance to it. Two names that have emerged as potential options for athletic director Scott Woodward are Murray State’s Matt McMahon and North Texas’ Grant McCasland. As the clear-cut best job still available, LSU can afford to take its time and still have a free run at its preferred candidates.
Given the fact that Bennett is in a great situation in Charlottesville, it’s not exactly surprising that the long-time Virginia coach isn’t looking to jump ship for a job that could come with NCAA limitations.
McMahon and McCasland both make a lot of sense. The former has three NCAA Tournament appearances with the Racers (which would have likely been four, had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic) while the latter made it to the second round of March Madness last year and led his team to the NIT this year. The Mean Green fell in the second round to Bennett’s Cavaliers.
On Sunday, Stadium’s Jeff Goodman also reported that McMahon was “in the mix” for the Tigers gig.
With several jobs around the country beginning to fill, Woodward may be feeling a greater sense of urgency to get things done. Still, as Borzello mentions, LSU is the best job still available and should be able to dictate the terms in the coaching market, even with the ongoing NCAA situation.
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McMahon led the Racers to a 31-3 season in 2021-22.
LSU is less than 48 hours removed from the end of its 2021-22 season at the hands of the Iowa State Cyclones in what was a No. 6 vs. No. 11 seed upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night.
But the search to replace Will Wade, who was fired on March 13, is more than a week old. And it seems that LSU athletics director Scott Woodward could be narrowing the list of potential candidates.
According to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, Murray State coach Matt McMahon is in the mix for the opening in Baton Rouge. Per Goodman, the Tigers also looked at San Francisco’s Todd Golden before he was named the head coach at Florida on Friday.
Murray State head coach Matt McMahon is in the mix for the LSU opening, source told @Stadium. LSU also looked at Todd Golden before he was hired at Florida.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 20, 2022
McMahon, 43, is considered one of the rising stars in the sport. He’s been at Murray State since 2015 and touts a 154-67 record. He’s perhaps best known for developing Memphis Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant.
His Racers made the 2022 NCAA Tournament as a No. 7-seed but were eliminated in the second round by No. 15-seed Cinderella Saint Peter’s after beating Golden’s Dons in overtime in the first round. This was his best season with Murray State, finishing 31-3 with an 18-0 record in the Ohio Valley Conference.
McMahon has made the NCAA Tournament three times and would likely have a fourth if the 2020 event was not canceled due to COVID-19. He has never advanced beyond the round of 32, however.
He may not be the most proven candidate the Tigers could target, but he has a great track record of mid-major success and runs an exciting brand of offense that would certainly appeal to the LSU faithful.
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Blake Toppmeyer thinks LSU will look at a pair of coaches from the state of Texas.
It’s rare for a team to find itself looking for a head coach with the backdrop of an NCAA Tournament run, but that’s exactly the situation LSU is in after firing Will Wade ahead of Selection Sunday.
While the focus in the coming days will (and should) be on the athletes and what they’re doing on the court as they head to Milwaukee for the first round, much of the conversation in the coming weeks will center around the search to replace Wade.
USA TODAY Sports columnist Blake Toppmeyer has two candidates in mind for the job, and both would give athletics director Scott Woodward the chance to dip back into his Texas roots, where he wooed power conference coaches away in football and basketball at Texas A&M with Jimbo Fisher and Buzz Williams.
The first candidate is one that would make a lot of sense but could be a nonstarter for reasons other than Xs and Os.
Houston’s Kelvin Sampson may be 66-years-old, but there are few coaches as accomplished. He has two career Final Four appearances with two different teams, and he has a winning record on his career in the NCAA Tournament at 19-16.
But if you’re waiting for a catch, here it is: Sampson would come with more than a little baggage. He’s run afoul of the NCAA in previous stops at Oklahoma and Indiana, receiving a five-year show-cause penalty after his time with the latter. He spent that time as an assistant coach in the NBA before returning to the college game in 2014.
Here’s Toppmeyer’s take on Sampson’s strengths — and limitations — as a candidate.
Viewed through today’s lens, Sampson’s transgressions don’t seem so bad anyway. It’s not as if he operated or arranged easy money for recruits. Sampson’s cheating featured impermissible text messages and phone calls to recruits. Sampson has a good thing going at Houston, where his salary is $3.1 million. He enjoys sturdy backing from billionaire booster Tilman Fertitta, the Houston Rockets owner who is the chair of the UH System’s board of regents. Sampson’s son, Kellen, is Houston’s coach-in-waiting.
Look, I’m not here to moralize about the NCAA’s overly bureaucratic and often ridiculous rules. Do I think that Sampson’s improper contact with recruits is representative of some moral failing? Of course not.
Given his current salary and the fact that there’s a succession plan in place, it would make a lot of sense for him to jump to the SEC, even though his Cougars program is set to join the Big 12 at some indeterminant point in the future.
But it’s not about that. The fact remains that this is an LSU program that found itself embroiled in one of the biggest college basketball scandals in recent years. Sanctions from the NCAA are almost certainly coming down the pipeline, and hiring a coach who was previously banned by that same body for a time would be an interesting choice, to say the least.
I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Woodward will not be targeting a coach with a prior history of NCAA sanctions. Especially with so many intriguing coaches without a rap sheet. So, assuming Sampson is off the list, who else does Toppmeyer think the Tigers will go after?
If we’re sticking with the Texas theme, why not opt for a reunion? Woodward hired Williams away from a good job once, and he could potentially do it again, per Toppmeyer.
Williams curiously gravitates to programs with little pedigree. He went from Marquette toVirginia Tech to Texas A&M. The Aggies narrowly missed earning an NCAA bid this year in Williams’ third season. His best success came at Marquette, which he led to five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight. If Williams desires a Final Four for his mantle, he’d have a better shot achieving that at LSU. Texas A&M is one of six SEC programs to never reach a Final Four.
Woodward obviously liked Williams enough to bring him to College Station, and he at least was interested in bringing Fisher to Baton Rouge as well. Williams isn’t the most accomplished candidate, though he does have a wide range of experience.
It’s clear that Woodward approaches these searches looking to land a big name. At LSU, he’s already hired Brian Kelly away from Notre Dame in football, Jay Johnson away from Arizona in baseball and Kim Mulkey away from Baylor in women’s basketball.
He will almost certainly shoot for a similar caliber hire for a Tigers men’s basketball program that doesn’t have the pedigree of some other schools in the conference but are quickly rising. If Woodward makes the right hire, the school could be poised to capitalize on the positive aspects from Wade’s tenure.
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Here are some of the names ESPN’s Jeff Borzello associated with the Tigers’ opening.
It didn’t exactly come as a surprise that LSU chose to part ways with fifth-year basketball coach Will Wade.
The bulk of his tenure has been spent under investigation from the NCAA, and the program had received a Notice of Allegations citing Wade for multiple Level I violations just days before he was fired on Saturday.
A disappointing 2021-22 season in which the team began 12-0 but finished 22-11 with an SEC Tournament exit in the quarterfinals didn’t exactly help Wade’s cause, either. Still, the timing of the move on the eve of Selection Sunday, where the Tigers expected to find themselves comfortably within the NCAA Tournament field, was certainly a bit jarring.
With LSU about to undertake yet another coaching search, ESPN’s Jeff Borzello discussed several names he expects to come up in athletics director Scott Woodward’s search. Keep in mind, this search is just a day old and a lot is sure to change in the coming weeks.
Here’s Borzello’s breakdown.
Atop the list could be Baylor’s Scott Drew. He’s been linked to the Louisville vacancy this spring, although it seems unlikely he would leave Baylor one year after winning the national championship. Woodward could also make a run at the likes of Illinois’ Brad Underwood, who has shown the recruiting chops to compete in the SEC. Could Woodward go back to Texas A&M and hire Buzz Williams? The Aggies have played themselves into the NCAA tournament this week. Arkansas’ Eric Musselman could be a target, given his name recognition and what he has done with the Razorbacks. But Musselman seems to enjoy Fayetteville and has two top-10 recruits entering the program next season. One other name could be Florida’s Mike White, who spent four seasons as the head coach at Louisiana Tech and has been mentioned as someone who could look to make a move.
If the NCAA cloud forces LSU to go away from high-profile candidates, keep an eye on Baylor assistant Jerome Tang, North Texas’ Grant McCasland, Murray State’s Matt McMahon and UAB’s Andy Kennedy.
As Borzello notes elsewhere in his piece, this is an attractive job for a myriad of reasons despite the looming cloud of potential NCAA sanctions, and Woodward has made high-profile head coaching hires his trademark. Flashy options are certainly represented on this list.
Drew is coming off a national championship at Baylor last season, while Underwood also helms one of the best and most consistent programs in the nation. However, there are certainly arguments that both would have higher ceilings at a program with LSU’s resources.
Musselman, who has quickly asserted himself among the class of the SEC’s coaches, would be an obvious target as well — assuming Woodward could sway him away from a comfortable situation at Arkansas.
White is another potential option Woodward could steal from the SEC. His Florida teams have underachieved a bit, especially in the postseason, but he has achieved a good deal of consistency in Gainesville. He hasn’t finished with a losing record since Year 1, though his team just missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that first season.
Woodward will almost certainly center the search around experienced and proven power-conference candidates, at least initially, meaning that Tang, McCasland and McMahon will most likely be backup candidates. Kennedy has SEC experience, though the track record of success isn’t quite there.
There are a lot of options for LSU, though NCAA allegations may hamper the search a bit. Still, you can expect a wide-reaching (and potentially winding) approach to replace Wade.
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Despite Jerry Jones’s denials, the rumors won’t die anytime soon; more speculation over the weekend of an imminent reunion in Dallas. | From @ToddBrock24f7
When New Orleans coach Sean Payton announced last week he was stepping away from coaching after 16 seasons, many assumed- even hoped- that it simply meant he was stepping away from the Saints… and jumping on I-49 North to come to Dallas instead.
That certainly appears to not be an option- at least not right now- for the 58-year-old Payton, who first told Dan Patrick that he hasn’t been contacted by any teams… but then admitted that two clubs have asked about him in a roundabout sort of way.
And as recently as Sunday, NFL insiders were still addressing the persistent rumors that one of those teams must have been the Cowboys.
After nearly two weeks of awkward silences and cryptic soundbites about the franchise’s next steps in the wake of a bitterly disappointing playoff exit, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones finally tried to clear the air about current head coach Mike McCarthy.
Jones went on local radio in Dallas to back McCarthy’s return… mainly by talking about how badly he wanted defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to come back.
He got Quinn. He still has McCarthy. And Payton has made it no secret that he hopes to land a television gig for the 2022 season.
But in a recent episode of his show, Patrick asked the longtime coach if any other teams had reached out to him since his stunning change-of-career announcement last week.
“Not one,” Payton said before clarifying. “Well, they would have to reach out to the Saints. And look, you can have a back-door, ‘Hey-would-you-have-any-interest?’ That’s happened maybe with a couple clubs, but I’m not looking at that path right now. At some point; I don’t think I’m finished coaching.”
Patrick seized on the obvious mention of a couple clubs and pressed for a more precise number.
“Two. And when I say that,” Payton explained, “all I’m saying is somebody who’s close to someone [said]: ‘Man, you’d be really good here.’ But we’re only 24, 48 hours removed from [his announcement]. And that’s not my plan.”
Patrick pursued the line of questioning, throwing out two frequently-mentioned possibilities: Chicago and Dallas. (This was before the Bears announced they were hiring Matt Eberflus for the job.)
“No, no. That’s where it stops.”
But it didn’t. Not really. Because later in the conversation, the two discussed Payton’s potential as a gameday color man in the booth. And the coach used a real-life football scenario, one completely chosen at random and for no reason in particular (wink, wink) to break down.
Dan Patrick (@dpshow) asked Sean Payton to pretend to be a TV analyst and explain how the Chiefs got into FG range with only 13 seconds remaining. Patrick didn’t love Payton’s call.
Payton: “Then ask me about the end of the Cowboys game, and let me see if I can do this better.” pic.twitter.com/igI6HaCG1n
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) January 27, 2022
Back-channel conversations aren’t necessary when the candidate does his tryout live on a popular streaming show with a nationally-recognized host.
For his part, Jones denied everything during his radio call-in.
“I’m not part of any dialogue or any decision-making relative to him leaving New Orleans,” the owner said the next day.
That sentence has all kinds of gray areas and wiggle room for those looking to find it, especially considering that the two men remain close 16 years after their employer-employee relationship ended.
By Sunday, even as the league was settling in for conference championship games involving four other teams, the studio shows couldn’t resist teasing out the possibility of Jones and Payton engaging in double-secret-probation code-word negotiations about the coach’s availability and interest.
NFL Network’s Mike Garofalo referenced Payton’s chat with Patrick and the “a couple clubs” revelation. Then he took it to where everybody’s head had already gone.
“I’m told, by the way,” Garofalo offered on-air, “no indication that the Cowboys were one of those teams. I know everybody wants to put him there; no indications that’s happening. At least not yet.”
Perhaps notably, the camera then cut to a triple-splitscreen shot of Garofalo, Ian Rapoport, and Tom Pelissero. The three men who make up the network’s main reporting force all wore very obvious looks of extreme skepticism on their faces.
The Sean Saga isn’t over, and everyone who follows the never-ending soap opera that is America’s Team knows it. As long as Payton is not on an NFL sideline, there will be plenty of say-it-right-out-loud speculation about him being just one bad loss, one poor showing, one botched timeout, one mismanaged game situation away from a reunion with Jerry Jones and the Cowboys.
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If Tommy Rees is a big part of Notre Dame’s future plans does that tell us something more about the next head coach?
Brian Kelly is yesterday’s news as he’s been greeted at the airport by some of the most hospitable the bayou has to offer, and takes on the task of cleaning up the mess Ed Orgeron left behind.
Who from Notre Dame will follow Brian Kelly is the biggest question the Fighting Irish football program will face in short order, and how do they go about combating Kelly’s recruitment of his former assistants?
Pete Sampson shared a tidbit on Kelly’s pursuit of Marcus Freeman Tuesday morning and it got me thinking how Notre Dame simply can’t afford to lose his services, even if that means Freeman being the next head coach.
What about offensive coordinator Tommy Rees? Sampson shared a tidbit on him Tuesday afternoon as well.
Source: Notre Dame will be meeting with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees in an effort to keep the former Irish quarterback in place on staff.
LSU’s proposed offer to Rees is 400k above Notre Dame. Rees’ desire is to stay in South Bend at this time.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) November 30, 2021
For conversation’s sake let’s assume Sampson is 100% correct on all of this and quickly dissect to see where it takes us:
I think you can see where I’m going here without me saying anything more.
If you’re rooting for a certain heralded Notre Dame assistant to be promoted to head coach then I can only imagine the information Sampson presents above would speak well to that as a possibility.
Related:
Key takeaways from Jack Swarbrick’s Tuesday morning media session
