The coaching carousel’s twists and turns create all sorts of amazing scenarios. These scenarios usually revolve around a big job coming open at an unexpected time. A coach who might have privately dreamed of coaching at a certain school, but who just took a job elsewhere or who just got fired, suddenly faces a unique opportunity.
Consider Dan Lanning and the Alabama job. Lanning loves being at Oregon, and he did choose to stay in Eugene, but it had to be awfully tempting for Lanning — who coached in the SEC and coached for former Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart at Georgia — to take over for Nick Saban. It’s the one job Lanning might have thought about taking. Coaches don’t leave great jobs unless special jobs open up. They wouldn’t take any of several jobs, but there’s often one job — only one — which calls out to coaches even if they are well-compensated elsewhere.
We might now have that kind of situation at Washington with Kalen DeBoer leaving for Alabama.
Jonathan Smith was a Chris Petersen assistant in 2016, when Washington made the College Football Playoff. Smith departed for Michigan State because Oregon State got left behind in the death of the Pac-12. Smith could view Washington as his dream job, the one place he might go, even if it means never coaching at Michigan State.
Remember: We have seen coaches agree to take a new job, then watch other jobs come open. Then they take that job. Manny Diaz agreed to coach Temple, but when the Miami job unexpectedly came open several years ago, Diaz bolted without coaching Temple for one game. Kliff Kingsbury agreed to be USC offensive coordinator in 2018, but then the Arizona Cardinals job came open and Kingsbury never did coach a game on Clay Helton’s staff.
Will Jonathan Smith think about going to Washington? If he doesn’t, could a longtime Seattle-based coach named Pete Carroll be Washington’s other choice?
Let’s see what people are saying: