Tag: Nebraska Head Coach Search

FOX Sports analyst updates Nebraska coaching search

The Nebraska coaching search continues to take some interesting twists and turns.

On Saturday morning Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports provided updates on the search for Nebraska’s next head football coach. He also discussed possible candidates for the other Power Five coaching jobs at Arizona State, Colorado, Georgia Tech, and Wisconsin.

Feldman mentioned three head coaches and four offensive/defensive coordinators among the possible candidates for the multiple openings. As usual, Kansas head football coach Lance Leipold continues to be one of the more popular names in connection to the Cornhuskers job. Since Scott Frost was fired, Leipold has been rumored to be a top candidate in Lincoln. In addition, Feldman’s report says the Jayhawks coach will also be a candidate for the Wisconsin job should Jim Leonhard fail to win the full-time head coaching job as the interim this season.

The assistant coach rumored to be on Nebraska’s radar is Alabama Offensive Coordinator Bill O’Brien. O’Brien has been at Alabama since 2021 after having spent seven seasons as the head coach of the Houston Texans. Before taking over Houston, he spent two seasons at Penn State. Those two seasons were in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, and it’s well known that Athletic Director Trev Alberts was impressed with the manor O’Brien was able to rebuild a program steeped in toxicity.

I think Leipold is a genuine target for Nebraska, while I continue to think O’Brien is a fantasy. Bill O’Brien is an NFL coach, and any success as a head coach in Lincoln would immediately reopen the National Football League doors. Alberts is looking for a builder and someone who will be in it for the long haul. That’s not Bill O’Brien.

I still feel like the actual head coaching hire will be someone under the radar. I think Mickey Joseph is still a very real candidate, but there are no guarantees, and Alberts has made it clear that he will hire his chosen candidate. And with this hire more than likely defining his tenure as Athletic Director, he will do his due diligence and make his move only when he’s ready.

Scroll below and take a look at Bruce Feldman’s list of candidates for Power Five jobs.

Newly fired NFL coach already connected to Nebraska opening

Could this coach be on the sidelines in Lincoln next fall?

A name mentioned in connection to the Nebraska job was fired from his NFL team on Monday morning. Carolina Panther’s head coach was fired after going 11-27 during his three seasons on the sidelines in Charlotte. Rhule came to Carolina from Baylor, where he had been the head coach for three seasons.

Panthers’ owner David Tepper signed Rhule to a seven-year $62 million deal just three years ago. Due to his early dismissal, Rhule will now be due north of $40 million. His teams were an abysmal 1-27 when an opponent scored more than 17 points against the Panthers.

Rhule’s name has been mentioned in connection with the Nebraska opening. Athletic Director Trev Alberts has said he is looking for someone with a history of building programs from the ground up. Rhule was able to do just that at both Temple and Baylor, where he inherited troubled programs and took each school to a conference championship game in just three years.

Rhule is a name to watch, and now that he’s available, we may start to hear him mentioned a little more often.

Nebraska Football Coaching Search Tracker: Week 6

Who are some of the leading candidates for the Nebraska vacancy?!

Now that Week 6 has come and gone, the list of prospective candidates for the head football coach job at Nebraska continues to evolve. It’s important to remember that Athletic Director Trev Alberts has clarified that this will be a national search and that he intends to “reach out to a lot of people.”

When asked for the qualities Alberts will look for in someone to run the program, he stated,

“I don’t know if there is anything specific to how magnified the role is. I certainly think it has to be someone who has a servant leadership mentality that is here to serve young people. Perhaps sees a picture that is bigger than themselves. But I don’t think anything specific. Every single job in college football has challenges. This job has advantages to other jobs and it has some disadvantages. It is the same thing with every job in college football. We have 1.8 million people in this state. That is not going to change. But we have some built in advantages here so if we play to our strengths and build on those. The right type of coach sees this as an opportunity to rebuild and build something special here.”

When asked for a timeline when a hire would be made, Alberts said,

“I do think there’s some benefits in terms of making the decision when we made it. I think this gives us an opportunity to really do the necessary work. We need to dive into a real process, and a detail-oriented process that talks to a lot of people. That’s why I mentioned earlier, you’re gonna hear about a lot of names. That’s good. That means we’re going to talk to a lot of people, because we’re going to clearly define what our values are. And we’re not going to hire coaches who don’t believe in what we believe in. We need to take as long as it takes to find the right leader. So is there an ideal timeline? Sure. You could naturally look at some of these timelines – early signing date – and say it would be really nice to be able to get the person in place by then, because it would allow us to do that. We won’t make decisions or rush things just to get a coach hired. We’re also not going to try to win the press conference. At the end of the day, we need to hire the right leader and the right fit, and that’s a really important thing here, as well.”

Below is a list of the active college football coaches who have been rumored around the head coaching search and then one wildcard who I think should be given a serious look.

Analyst gives honest thoughts on Nebraska coaching search

Another day, another list of possible candidates!

On Thursday afternoon, athletic director Trev Alberts announced that Nebraska would use the search firm Collegiate Sports Associates to hire their next football coach. With the search for Scott Frost’s replacement reaching new heights, the list of names for the job continues to grow. Josh Pate, the host of Late Kick on 247Sports, gave his thoughts on the state of the Husker coaching search and a list of possible candidates. In addition, Pate gave an honest assessment of the Husker program.

“Nebraska can be a very solid program… you can have a program you can be proud of. They can be a whole heck of a lot more than they are now.”

He went on to say that he believes Nebraska can be in the same class as Big Ten teams like Iowa or Wisconsin. Pate also looked at several top coaching candidates and gave thoughts on who is or isn’t a legitimate candidate.

Report states Nebraska has ‘wish list’ for head coach

What do you think of the three names on the wish list?

One of the top reporters in college football has filed a new report which says that the Nebraska Cornhuskers have three candidates at the top of their ‘wish list’ for the head football coach vacancy. Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reports that the three candidates Athletic Director Trev Alberts is currently targeting are two college head coaches from the Big 12 and an offensive coordinator in the SEC.

These three names shouldn’t be new to Husker fans as all three have been rumored as potential candidates since the job opened more than ten days ago. We’ve written candidates previously in our Coaching Tracker. Feldman also has reported extensively on what went wrong at Nebraska with Scott Frost, and some of the details are as illuminating as they are infuriating. We’ve attached the comments below.

A look at the wish list can be found below. And let us know what you think. So who should be the next head coach of Nebraska football?

New report lists seven possible candidates for head coach

The list of candidates will only keep growing!

As the dust continues to settle after Sunday’s announcement that head football coach Scott Frost had been fired, talk now moves to who will be his long-term replacement after this season. Husker fans are familiar with this process as it will be the fifth time Nebraska will have to hire a new football coach since the hiring of Bill Callahan back in 2003. Cornhuskers Wire will have its list of possible candidates released later this week, but until then, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports has listed seven coaches that could replace Scott Frost.

I’ll keep reminding people that Athletic Director Trev Alberts has made it very clear this process will be conducted in a thorough and organized fashion. During his Sunday afternoon press conference discussing the firing, he said,

“Ultimately, you know, in a prior life, I have relationships with a lot of coaches in this business, and I intend to reach out to a lot of people. So if you hear that Trev Alberts reached out to XYZ coach, it doesn’t mean that I’ve offered the job to XYZ coach. I think there’s some fabulous coaches out there that have a perspective about our job that I can benefit from so I’m going to reach out to a lot of people.

Nebraska’s AD announces national search for next head football coach

The Husker AD said he plans to reach out to “a lot of people” about the job.

Nebraska Director of Athletics Trev Alberts met with the media on Sunday afternoon to discuss his decision to relieve Scott Frost as the head football coach of the Cornhuskers earlier that day. Alberts spoke for about fifteen minutes with the assembled press, and the most telling quote of the entire availability was the announcement that Nebraska would be conducting a national search for the next head coach. However, Alberts would also not set himself to a timeline for the hire stressing the need for a detail-oriented process.

While this will be the first time Alberts will hire a football coach, a common theme emerges from how he has handled coaching searches for other sports at Nebraska or his previous stop at Nebraska-Omaha. As Gary Sharp of “1620 The Zone” tweeted, expect the search to be seen as a “very thorough search and a quiet process.” Alberts also stressed a need for someone who will be the right leader for the program’s future, not someone who will “win the press conference.” The AD also said that “resources won’t be an impediment to the University of Nebraska getting the right football coach to lead this program.”

 

Associate Head Coach Mikey Joseph has been named the Interim Head Football Coach, and the Director of Athletics told the gathered press that Joseph has been empowered to run the program as he sees fit. Alberts went as far as saying he has no intention of meddling in the staff’s day-to-day preparations. 

Nebraska now prepares to host the Oklahoma Sooners at Memorial Stadium this Saturday at 11:00 am CT on FOX.

Stay tuned to Cornhuskers Wire for the latest regarding the search for a new head football coach, and find more social media reactions below.