It’s the most wonderful time of the college football season, at least if you’re a diseased little creep like me. Coaching cycle season. This is the time for the real heads. The coaches hired and fired from late November October through the end of this month are going to determine the futures of so many of the teams and leagues covered here at the Outside Zone.
Even in something of a quiet year for the G5 in the cycle, there are still plenty of major jobs that could determine pecking orders moving forward depending on whether the programs involved hit or miss on their respective hires.
And because hiring a perfect fit for your open coaching vacancy seems to be increasingly difficult for a lot of programs around the nation, I figured I would be of some assistance. Let’s play matchmaker here, pairing up the G5 jobs of the cycle with the coaches that fit them best - casting aside things like “money” or “availability” and focusing instead on “vibes” and “whatever I feel like, within reason.”
AAC
SMU
Actual hire: Rhett Lashlee (OC, Miami)
Matchmaker hire: Rhett Lashlee (OC, Miami)
It’s a tough scene here for the first pick to be the same as the one the school actually made, but here we are. Lashlee has a ton of ties to the area and the program and can just about pick up where Sonny Dykes left off, which is really what SMU needs right now. He’s a very strong recruiter and he should be able to guide the Mustangs in the direction they were already headed. Let’s hope he holds onto DC Jim Leavitt, who I think can get this thing cooking in pretty short order.
Temple
Actual hire: N/A
Matchmaker hire: Elijah Robinson (DL coach, Texas A&M)
I think Robinson is likely headed to fill one of Penn State’s defensive vacancies, but in my ideal world, Temple is tabbing him for its vacancy at head coach after moving on from Rod Carey.
This would be a return to what put Temple near the top of the AAC in the first place, and what caused it to drop so quickly when it tried the opposite. Robinson is 36 years old, he’s a New Jersey native, and he’s one of the strongest recruiters on Texas A&M’s staff. He coached at Temple briefly under Matt Rhule, too.
That’s how this program used to hire. It’s what got it Steve Addazio, Rhule, and Geoff Collins, and what it needs to go back to doing. Temple is designed to be a feeder program, and though that can be hurtful when it leads to those young coaches jumping for bigger jobs, it’s really not a bad existence to find yourself in at this level.
Robinson probably jumps after a few years, as would someone like Stan Drayton, and that’s fine. But hiring a bad coach because you know he’ll stay is no better solution, and that was the move with Carey.
C-USA
Florida International
Actual hire: N/A
Matchmaker hire: Frank Ponce (OC, Appalachian State)
I’m not sure why this one hasn’t actually happened if I’m being honest. Ponce spent more than a decade as a Miami high school coach and got his first college job as the receivers coach at FIU, serving under Mario Cristobal for his entire tenure in town. He went to Appalachian State under fellow Cristobal assistant Scott Satterfield and worked as his OC from 2013-18, followed him to Louisville, and then returned to App State this year to reclaim his old job.
The Mountaineer offense wasn’t spectacular this season, but he made a lot out of nothing with Chase Brice and designed a really nice rushing attack to pair with it.
Plus, perhaps above all else, he’s an FIU alum. He’s publicly pined for the job. Unless he’s just turning it down here because of concerns around program investment, any other hire feels like a miss with Ponce on the board.
Louisiana Tech
Actual hire: Sonny Cumbie (OC, Texas Tech)
Matchmaker hire: Frank Wilson (HC, McNeese State)
Just not hiring Sonny Cumbie would be a big improvement here in general, but this hire feels to me like a missed opportunity. Louisiana and Troy are bringing in new coaches, ULM is down, South Alabama is entering year two of a new tenure. Tulane is still in a pretty good spot but doesn’t exactly have a native son at the helm either.
Louisiana Tech isn’t positioned well for realignment right now, but that changing of the guard in the area signals to me a potential space for landing some really strong recruiting classes as you either hunt for a new league or look to become the C-USA’s unquestioned king.
So, why not hire a recruiter? Why not hire Frank Wilson, who has become known as the recruiter in Louisiana? He failed at UTSA but not for a lack of recruiting production, and likely would have taken a bump up from McNeese State if offered an FBS head coaching gig, especially in Louisiana.
Instead, he’s joining Brian Kelly’s staff at LSU, and Tech is stuck with a Texan who runs an offense from a decade and a half ago.
Independents
New Mexico State
Actual hire: Jerry Kill (AHC, TCU)
Matchmaker hire: Bob DeBesse (?)
I don’t think there’s much in the way of a good fit here because this job is just so bleak, but I would have liked to see something at least a bit more inspired than Jerry Kill.
My answer? Bob DeBesse. Most recently of Georgia Southern, DeBesse has triple-option bonafides and has spent the vast majority of his career in the Southwest. He worked under Fritz at Sam Houston State and was the OC at New Mexico under Bob Davie, helping to design a really nice modified triple. I would have loved to see the same thing here, with a program that needs something unique to avoid being washed away entirely.
UConn
Actual hire: Jim Mora (Television)
Matchmaker hire: Bill Durkin (OL coach, Coastal Carolina)
I wrote about this one at length some time ago and don’t want to repeat myself here, so I’ll keep it quick. Durkin is helping to direct one of the most impressive triple-option adaptations the sport has seen in years, and he went to UMass for college. He knows the northeast, he can recruit the northeast, and he has a system that will make UConn stand out among recruits, fans and opponents.
If you aren’t going to be talented, which UConn will never be, at least make yourself fun to watch, unique, and hard to prepare for. Jim Mora doesn’t do any of that.
UMass
Actual hire: Don Brown (DC, Arizona)
Matchmaker hire: Don Brown (DC, Arizona)
I have no notes here. Brown knows the area as well as anyone, he has a distinct style, and he isn’t going to leave. Give him time, and stay out of the way.
MAC
Akron
Actual hire: Joe Moorhead (OC, Oregon)
Matchmaker hire: Joe Moorhead (OC, Oregon)
This is well beyond what I was expecting for Akron, so I’m not going to mess with a good thing. I feel Moorhead could have done quite a bit better, but I’m thrilled to have him regardless and cannot wait to watch what he does in this league with that offense.
MWC
Colorado State
Actual hire: Jay Norvell (HC, Nevada)
Matchmaker hire: Tony Alford (RB coach, Ohio State)
I don’t really have a huge issue with this one - Norvell is a really good offensive coach with a track record in this league. He will win at Colorado State and will do so quickly. But, I can’t help but feel like Alford was an even better option. He played for the Rams back in the 90s and has coveted this job for years. He’s one of the best recruiters in the nation and has produced quite a few really strong rushing attacks, while working under, among others, Larry Kehres, Dan McCarney, Brian Kelly, Urban Meyer and now Ryan Day.
There’s a chance he didn’t want the job this time, or that his ties to Meyer made him a bit less attractive because of CSU’s issues with the Jags head coach when it hired Addazio under his watch, but Alford does still seem like the best fit here.
Fresno State
Actual hire: N/A
Matchmaker hire: Tom Herman (assistant, Chicago Bears)
Jeff Tedford is going to get this job, and I don’t think Herman wants it, but man. Planting him back at a G5 job with a strong cultural connection to its area and pride in being the underdog, especially a G5 job in his home state, just seems like a recipe for success. Herman is an asshole and that needs to be worked around, but I think he’d kill it in Fresno if he wanted it, and if Fresno could put up with him.
Nevada
Actual hire: N/A
Matchmaker hire: Jim Mastro (RGC, Oregon)
I think Mastro should and will be the hire here. He coached under Chris Ault at Nevada and has since worked with Moorhead and Mike Leach, which I’d consider plenty of finishing school for an offensive coach. I have a bit of trepidation about his lack of play-calling experience, but he knows the school, he’s learned from several really good coaches, and perhaps best of all for Nevada, he’d probably come pretty cheap.
Sun Belt
Georgia Southern
Actual hire: Clay Helton (HC, USC)
Matchmaker hire: Brian Bohannon (HC, Kennesaw State)
This one may be my least fire hire of the offseason. Georgia Southern, staring down its history, has decided that this time is surely going to be the time that going away from the triple-option doesn’t immediately doom the program, and that this will be the time a retread doesn’t collapse horribly. Clay Helton, a bad coach with bad ideas, surely is the man for this extremely storied program that has a distinct history of doing things a very specific way, which Helton has already said he won’t do.
If only there was a proven FCS head coach, within the state of Georgia, who runs the exact system that has worked at Georgia Southern forever.
Louisiana
Actual hire: Michael Desormeaux (co-OC, Louisiana)
Matchmaker hire: Patrick Toney (DC, Louisiana)
It’s a very small qualm here, and I think that Desormeaux is going to be good to very good with what Billy Napier built at Louisiana, but Toney is the better of the two coaches, and I hate to see him leave for Florida with Napier. His defensive schemes were excellent and played a huge role in the success Louisiana found under Napier, and replacing him is not going to be easy.
“He’s fun to work with now,” Napier said of Toney in August. “I love coming to work every day knowing we’ve got one of the bright, young, up-and-coming football minds in our building. I think we’re all going to be telling stories about ole ‘PT’ one day.
“He’s exceptional. We’re certainly proud to have him.”
Desormeaux can keep up the recruiting and probably even move the offense forward a bit, but finding a new Toney is much much easier said than done, and I would have liked to see Louisiana avoid doing it at all.
Troy
Actual hire: Jon Sumrall (ILB coach, Kentucky)
Matchmaker hire: Jon Sumrall (ILB coach, Kentucky)
The hire Troy should have made when Neal Brown left, and now the hire it has made. Sumrall is an experienced coach in the area, a strong recruiter and he saw how the program operated under Brown’s guidance. In a really critical time for Troy football, I think it got it right here after whiffing horribly on Chip Lindsey last time.