You know how when you go to the grocery store for a full haul shop and if you’re smart, you put the heavy stuff in the trunk first and not, say, the bread and yogurt?
Let’s get the heavy stuff out of the way regarding Virginia football after head coach Mike London resigned this weekend following another close loss to Virginia Tech that capped a 4-8 season.
1. You can win at Virginia;
2. It won’t necessarily be easy.
The smoke coming from Charlottesville seems to be billowing the way of Mike Sanford, Jr. offensive coordinator at Notre Dame. Sanford, a Boise State grad, shares that distinction with Jon Oliver, associate to UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage.
The first thing about Virginia is knowing that there is no sacrifice of academics to build an elite football program. UVA is cut from the rare FBS cloth in that while they’d prefer to win football games, maintaining their status as an elite academic institution will always usurp winning athletic events.
UVA might be wise to look the proven head coach route too, though, before making a quick hire. The ‘Hoos have struggled to find that identity hire since George Welsh retired. Al Groh wasn’t going to be there forever. The London bus just ran out of gas.
London was a great hire when it happened, an off-the-radar hire from Richmond who knew the Virginia football landscape. Early on, it looked like they had their guy, as at the time, UVA became the first FBS program to win at Florida State and at Miami in the same season (2011).
UVA would clearly like to get back to where Welsh was, even if the idea of the legendary coach at one school thing seems to be antiquated this day in age. London’s main downfall that led to not winning enough games centered around the ability or lack thereof to develop consistent quarterback play.
The next coach will likely need to show proven chops on that side of the ball, as the UVA defense was never bad, just never good enough to make up for a below-average offense.
So assuming Littlepage has a wish list in his drawer after the wounds of wanting London to succeed so badly have healed (and in this business, they have no choice but to heal quick, fast, and in a hurry), here are a few names that might get UVA where they want to be.
Pete Lembo, Ball State
Lembo’s 2015 won’t secure a lot of faith in this hire, but he was interested in the Wake Forest job a few years ago, so you know he’s interested in a gig that has academic implications along with football ones. He’s the first BSU coach to win 30 games his first four seasons.
Mike Sanford, Jr., Notre Dame (offensive coordinator)
Sanford has the coaching bloodline (his father is the coach at Indiana State) and is highly respected. He’s also a Virginia native. While the OC at Boise State, his offenses averaged nearly 40 points per game. The only worry is obviously experience, but he’s immensely highly regarded and has a history of succeeding at academic-first institutions having coached at Yale, Stanford, and now Notre Dame.
Tim Murphy, Harvard
The Crimson have not won fewer than seven games under Murphy since 2000, and they’ve lost more than one game in a season only once the last five years. In Murphy’s deep past, he was the head coach at Cincinnati when they were an Independent. He is 59, however, and it’s unknown how long he would want to coach.
Willie Fritz, Georgia Southern
Fritz would be a “name” hire, but his success at so many different levels makes him an intriguing name. His deep recruiting ties in the South and Texas certainly wouldn’t hurt, but it’s unknown how Fritz would handle recruiting at a school of the academic timber of UVA.
Luke Fickell, Ohio State (defensive coordinator)
Unlike more coordinator hires, Fickell wouldn’t be a total unknown as a head coach, having stepped in for one season betwixt the Jim Tressell-Urban Meyer years. Eventually, Fickell will take a gig somewhere to see how he can do with sustained time as the head coach. Virginia might be a decent place to try and hoe that row.
The Verdict
The writing sure seems to be on the wall that it’s Sanford’s job to lose. I tend to not paint over the writing on the wall, because normally, the primer doesn’t cover it enough to keep everyone from knowing what it said.
*
Follow TSS on Twitter @TheStudentSect
