Saturday, January 10, 2009

Matty Vautour on our next coach

Matty Vautour has a must read article on possibilities for the new UMass Head Coach here. He mentions a raft of possibile applicants for the UMass Head Coaching position.

Key quote from the article: "McCutcheon said he was contacted by interested candidates within 90 minutes of Brown's departure being announced on Friday."

  1. Several UMass players, including Liam Coen and Kyle Harrington endorsed UMass Offensive Coordinator Kevin Morris.
  2. Former UMass assistant coach and now head coach at Fordham, Tom Masella. He was not happy last time when Brown was chosen. Masella felt he should have been given a longer look. Don't know if he's over that.
  3. Dave Cosgrove, Maine. Cosgrove recently interviewed for the Rhode Island and Towson jobs, so he seems to be looking to leave the Black Bears.
  4. Dick Biddle, Colgate
  5. Tom Gilmore, Holy Cross
  6. Phis Estes, Brown. Estes was an assistant coach with Mark Whipple and has done an excellent job with Brown.
  7. Matt Griffin, Murray State, a Turners Falls native who knows the Western Mass scene well.
  8. Jack Bicknell, Jr, Former head coach at Louisiana Tech could be considered.
  9. Neal Brown, Troy State. He's a former UMass player who's been a fast riser in college coaching.
  10. Frank Spaziani, Boston College if he's interested in FCS football
  11. Ben Albert, Associate head Coach at Delaware. Former UMass star DT. (this one is from me)
We'll have to see who applies. Stay tuned.

In the opinion of the UMass Football Blog, of the coaches listed, Tom Masella (talked with him back when he was at UMass), Tom Gilmore, Phil Estes, Neal Brown and the two Boston College coaches, would be on the Blog's final list.

The two BC coaches, if interested, would be looking to leave in three years or so. But I'd rather have dynamic fast riser than a mediocre long termer.

In this article, Matty Vautour states that Brown's buy-out was only $25,000. If UMass gets a high profile guy, they should think of increasing that provision.