Tag: Dana Dimel

2023-2024 College Football Coaching Carousel

Texas A&M hires Duke’s Mike Elko as the coaching carousel continues to spin.

The end of the college football season is here and the coaching carousel is once again getting fired up. This season saw two early head coaching changes within the Big Ten to get an early jump on things, but more coaching changes are popping up as we close in on the end of another regular season around the nation.

We’ll keep track of all of the head coaching changes in our updated coaching carousel tracker to see what head coaches are out and who is replacing them. This will be updated daily as needed with the latest head coaching changes as jobs open up and are filled. As is so often the case in college football, one coaching vacancy being filled will lead to another opening popping up as a result.

As of Thursday, Dec. 8 there are 2 head coaching vacancies in college football, including 1 power conference job to fill. A total of 19 head coaching changes have been made this year.

Below is the updated chart for this year’s edition of the head coaching carousel in college football. After that is a bit more detail on each job opening, listed in alphabetical order.

3 stars from Oklahoma’s 45-13 win vs. UTEP

Dillon Gabriel, Reggie Grimes, and Eric Gray separated themselves as stars on Saturday in OU’s 45-13 win against UTEP.

It feels good to be able to spend time analyzing actual game action against other opponents. It felt as if we’d never make it, but we did, and it’s glorious.

Oklahoma laced up the cleats and strapped on the pads on Saturday to take on the UTEP Miners. The Miners, led by Dana Dimel, came into the game 0-1 after losing in week zero to North Texas.

On the other side, a historic day unfolded for Brent Venables.

He returned to Oklahoma and coached in his first game since leaving Norman to be Clemson’s defensive coordinator over a decade ago. This time was different. He became the 18th Oklahoma head coach to win his head coaching debut as the Sooners took down UTEP 45-13.

Offensively, Oklahoma entered the season replacing their starting quarterbacks, running back, starting left guard, a Swiss army knife in Jeremiah Hall, and a couple of notable pass catchers who transferred or went to the NFL. Defensively, they lost six starters. Five went to the NFL, and the other, safety Pat Fields, transferred to Stanford.

Saturday was step one in establishing new stars for the Oklahoma program and seeing guys in new positions taking steps forward in the right direction. Some names stood out in particular as we select our three stars for the first time this season.

Season Opener: UTEP is ‘right on schedule’ to play the Longhorns

UTEP head coach Dana Dimel spoke with media stated they were “right on schedule” to play the Texas Longhorns in the season opener.

It was made official on Wednesday that the Longhorns would host the Texas-El Paso Miners on September 12th to open the season. Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte confirmed in the Forty Acres Insider that was published. Their original matchup was set for September 19th on the original schedule but due to the Big 12 changing to a nine plus one schedule it had to be adjusted.

There were still questions even after the confirmation by Del Conte as to whether or not the game could still be played. Conference USA met on Wednesday evening to discuss their course of action as the fall football season approaches. As other conferences have come out and postponed the season, UTEP’s conference hadn’t yet made a decision. The conference issued the following statement.

Essentially a passive statement to state they were still in discussion about what their final answer will be. On a conference call with media, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby stated that a Big 12 opponent must adhere to their testing standards. If the Miners are afforded the opportunity to play they will be tested three times before they can play in Austin.

Head coach of the Miners Dana Dimel met with the media on Thursday and stated they were “right on schedule” to play against the Longhorns. UTEP had been dealing with a coronavirus outbreak that caused them to halt camp while they determined how to proceed.

Provided that the game doesn’t get cancelled, the Longhorns will host UTEP for their sixth meeting all-time. Texas has won all five matchups with their last game coming in 2016. Texas won 41-6. The Longhorns should be heavy favorites as the Miners are coming off a 1-11 season in 2019.