Virginia would work for Mack Brown, but would Mack Brown work for Virginia?

In week one or week two, it’s almost always too early to discuss the coaching carousel for specific jobs. We see far too many times in this business a scenario in which a team loses twice but then cleans up its act as September and the season move along.

Recall when Mark Richt went 0-2 in 2011 but then won 10 straight and reached the SEC Championship Game? He went from hot seat to “quite secure again” in a hurry. Whenever a mini-crisis emerged, Richt would put it out. Other coaches have done the same on many occasions over the years. Seasoned fans stay the course, but plenty of fans panic after the dumpster-fire performance in week one or two. The carousel can’t really spin just then.

After a full month, though? Oh yeah — we can begin to spin around and around.

Four games don’t represent open-and-shut-case verdicts for most coaches, but they do for a few. This is true not solely because of the given season as viewed in isolation, but because of the circumstances which existed (or perhaps, pre-existed) in the offseason.

Just such a situation exists in Charlottesville, Virginia, where it is just about impossible to imagine a 2016 season in which Mike London is still coaching the Virginia Cavaliers.

This leads us to our story.

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Barring the most improbable turnaround in the next two months, Virginia will miss a bowl game and find itself in need of a new coach.

A decent performance and an almost-win against Notre Dame and backup quarterback DeShone Kizer just can’t stand up to the weight created by drastically subpar efforts against UCLA and especially Boise State. The embarrassment caused by seeing Greyson Lambert leave the program and flourish at Georgia (even though the season is still young) is relatively substantial. That Virginia seems more impotent at a more advanced stage in the season is a pretty clear sign that London’s coaching isn’t leading to improvement. Moreover, it’s not as though he hasn’t had enough time near Monticello. Six seasons — that’s a long time in which to make only one bowl game.

Discussing London’s replacement now? It doesn’t seem like a terribly premature move, because there doesn’t seem to be a realistic chance of escape for the Cavaliers’ embattled coach.

Immediately, two thoughts come to mind when considering the UVA opening:

1) If Mack Brown did want to get back in the coaching business, he would probably enjoy coaching in Charlottesville.

2) Justin Fuente is probably the best coach Virginia could hope to get.

Those two thoughts bring us very quickly to the central tension point of this piece and its exploratory aim: Coaching hires aren’t just about getting the guy you want, but getting the guy you want who also happens to want you. Interest needs to be mutual. A passion for the job — wanting to make a specific program and situation work out — must be reciprocally felt.

The AD and program must care enough about winning to seek and compensate (and set up) the best possible coach. The coach must want to prove himself not just anyplace, but at one place, one spot, one member of one conference (or an independent, but we’re not talking about Notre Dame, BYU or Army here).

Given these tensions, statement No. 1 above is more a matter of a coach (likely, not confirmed) wanting to work at a school. Statement No. 2 is more a matter of the top realistic target a school has in mind.

It would be foolish of Virginia to not seek Justin Fuente as one of its foremost options for this December, once Memphis’s regular season is over. In no way should Brown, in his mid-60s, be the top target for UVA or (frankly) any school.

As for Brown, if he does want to coach again, what better job could he realistically find? It would seem to be a reach to think that Brown would be given the keys to a top-tier program. An AD, realizing Brown’s limited shelf life, could not realistically expect to get 15 years from the veteran sideline sultan. Brown’s career would seem to be just right for a quick-fix situation, which means an underachieving program with talent presently on hand and — in future years — reasonably accessible via recruiting.

Isn’t that what Brown has done at North Carolina and Texas, albeit on different scales? Moreover, isn’t Virginia similar to North Carolina on a number of levels in terms of the environment, relative level of pressure, and the opportunity to play meaningful games against name schools? If (again, it’s a big if) Brown really does want to re-enter coaching one more time, he would have a hard time finding a gig which would check off more boxes than Virginia.

Brown probably wouldn’t care for the Big Ten. With Vanderbilt improving against Ole Miss, the idea that the Commodore job would come open in two months has pretty much been wiped away, so it’s hard to see any SEC job opening up in December. The Pac-12 is removed from Brown’s recent coaching footprint, and I can’t imagine he’d want to return to the Big 12, where Iowa State is the one job which might come open after the regular season is done. Why would Brown want to coach against Texas and… for that matter… Oklahoma and an ascendant Baylor and TCU, only with players far less equipped to handle the challenge? Virginia and the ACC offer Brown something comfortable and familiar without the suffocating pressure of Texas. He couldn’t do much better.

The question becomes: Would Virginia find it worthwhile to hire Brown if Fuente and a few others (P.J. Fleck, perhaps, or Ed Warinner at Ohio State) said no?

Let’s just let that question hang there for a bit, because unless or until you answer that question, any subsequent discussion is pointless. Virginia should have its top couple of candidates in mind, but once the top candidates say no, the next choices on the list become very important. Should Brown be in the top four or five?

Virginia would want to consider (again, realizing that Brown has to want this first in order for these thought processes to be set in motion) the coordinators Brown brings to Charlottesville, especially on the offensive side. Brown would not be able to stockpile the depth and type of talent he had access to at Texas, so a more clever chess player on offense would seem to be a necessity. Beyond that specific question, Virginia would need to do homework in terms of diagnosing the hows and whys of the deterioration of Brown’s program in 2010 and beyond in Austin. Seeing what made Brown successful at North Carolina — and understanding what has and hasn’t changed in the ACC over the past 20 years — would also develop Virginia’s sense of whether Mack Brown would work out for the school or not.

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Virginia, one would think, fits Mack Brown.

The Cavaliers need to find out if Mack Brown fits them. It’s an intriguing question to consider if a national champion coach wants to get back in the game for one more run on the sidelines.

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

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