Tag: Jake Dickert

Power ranking 10 candidates for Michigan State football’s head coaching job: Version 2.0

Power ranking 10 candidates for Michigan State football’s head coaching job: Version 2.0

November is here and Michigan State’s coaching search is about to start ramping up in a big way.

In this series, we have ranked the potential candidates that could be in the running to take over Michigan State’s job. The list will be capped at ten names along with a few other honorable mentions, and will fluctuate based on how coaches are performing this season along with any rumored or confirmed interest from the Spartans.

Check out where we see the rankings at heading into the final month of the college football season:

Notable quotes from Dan Lanning as Ducks prepare for home stand vs. Washington State

Notable quotes from Dan Lanning as Ducks prepare for home stand vs. Washington State

Oregon Ducks head coach Dan Lanning is more than ready to put last week behind him. While he has admirably stood behind his aggressive decision-making in the 36-33 loss to the Washington Huskies, he is now ready to focus on the task at hand, which is playing a good Washington State Cougars team that will come to town this weekend.

A year ago, the early-season game against Washington State served as one of the pivotal moments of the season for the Duck, where they won 44-41 in dramatic fashion, thanks to a pick-six from Mase Funa at the end of the game. It served as a coming-out party of sorts for Oregon, who was still trying to turn around a narrative about their team after losing to Georgia in the first week of the year.

On Wednesday afternoon, Lanning met with reporters for the final time and offered a preview of the upcoming game, and discussed how Jake Dickert is running things up in Pullman. Here are some of the most notable quotes from that interview:

Two candidates have emerged as strong candidates for MSU football opening

College football insider Bruce Feldman is reporting a pair of current head coaches have emerged as “strong candidates” for the Michigan State opening

College football insider Bruce Feldman is reporting a pair of head coaches have emerged as strong candidates for the Michigan State opening.

Feldman is reporting Kansas head coach Lance Leipold and Washington State head coach Jake Dickert have emerged as strong candidates Michigan State will pursue. Both Leipold and Dickert are leading teams that are off to good starts this year and have been often linked to the Spartans since Mel Tucker was let go.

With both Leipold and Dickert serving as head coaches, don’t expect either to openly express interest in the Spartans’ job anytime soon. But this is definitely a report we will need to monitor for additional developments over the next few months.

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Report: Michigan State could hand Washington State a gut-punch with coaching hire

It looks like Washington State’s coach Jake Dickert is a leading candidate for the Michigan State job. What a gut-punch that would be for the Cougs.

The Washington State Cougars have been reeling the past couple of months, so can we all just decide to lay off for a bit?

First, the Cougars were left without a seat at the table in the world of conference realignment, standing alongside the Oregon State Beavers without a clear path forward.

Now, according to a report from The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, there’s a decent chance their coach, Jake Dickert, is going to get hired away by the Michigan State Spartans.

According to Feldman (subscription required), Dickert has emerged as a leading candidate to fill the head coaching vacancy in East Lansing.

“The 40-year-old Dickert has done an impressive job providing desperately needed stability in a program that has been rocked by every issue imaginable the past five years,” Feldman wrote.

The Cougars have been one of the best stories of the 2023 season, going 4-0 with wins over No. 19 Wisconsin and No. 14 Oregon State. Dickert is 14-9 as a head coach at Washington State.

That’s likely good enough to land him with the Spartans if Dickert wants to go. Michigan State is looking for a new head coach after Mel Tucker was fired for cause this past week. The news comes amid MSU’s investigation into sexual harassment allegations against the coach.

If Dickert can justify jumping ship and following Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA to the Big Ten after being left behind earlier this summer, nobody would blame him. Part of the coaching world is moving up after success and gaining for power and notoriety. That’s exactly what Dickert deserves to do after proving himself at Washington State.

If it does happen, though, it will be a tough one to swallow for the Cougars. Left without a conference, left without a coach, and left without a clear future.

Not a spot that any fan wants to be in.

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If USC doesn’t make the Pac-12 title game this year, it can look to Pullman and Washington State

Yes, the Trojans needed to take care of business at Utah, and they didn’t, but it’s notable that Wazzu had both Oregon and Utah on the ropes, and let them get away.

What do we always say about any pursuit of a conference or division championship in sports? Control what you can control. The USC Trojans led the Utah Utes by 14 points on October 15. They needed to protect that lead. They still led by seven points with one minute left. They needed to protect that lead.

They did not. If they had, they wouldn’t be in an uncomfortable position right now in the Pac-12 championship race.

We can all see and admit that.

Yet, it’s hard to avoid noticing that two of USC’s foremost competitors for the Pac-12 title were both in big trouble in Pullman this season. Both were able to escape Washington State.

Oregon was down 34-22 to the Cougars with four minutes left in regulation and then scored 20 points. Thursday night, Utah was without Cam Rising, Tavion Thomas, and Micah Bernard (on top of Brant Kuithe, who was lost for the season several weeks ago). The Utes still won.

Let’s look at this game from a Washington State perspective: