STARKVILLE — Mississippi State is in need of a football coach.
After the school announced Friday that Joe Moorhead’s contract had been terminated, MSU athletic director John Cohen will be tasked with hiring his second football coach in three years.
After MSU went outside the South to procure Moorhead for the position, expect Cohen to look below the Mason-Dixon line for his successor.
Here are some names to watch as the search unfolds:
The front runners
Gene Chizik (Former Auburn head coach)
It’s likely Cohen will look to hire a coach with previous experience in the SEC. What better option than to look at a man who not only won in the conference but also captured a national championship?
Chizik has been out of coaching for three years after a stint as the defensive coordinator at North Carolina and may be looking to jump back into coaching. He would bring championship pedigree to a program that has won just one SEC title (1941).
That said, Chizik was much maligned at Auburn, and it’s fair to question whether the Tigers won the 2010-11 title because of his coaching — most of which came on the defensive side of the ball — or Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton.
Billy Napier — Louisiana head coach
MSU fans should already be familiar with Napier. The 40-year-old Louisiana head coach gave Bulldog fans quite a scare to open the season in New Orleans, eventually falling 38-28.
Napier would bring a wealth of coaching experience in the upper echelon of college football to Starkville. A Nick Saban product, he spent six years as an assistant at Alabama — most recently as wide receivers coach from 2013-2017. He also spent seven years at Clemson — three of which were spent under Dabo Swinney — and boasts stops at Colorado State and Arizona State as well.
Under his guidance, the Ragin’ Cajuns improved from 5-7 the year before his arrival to 10-3 this season.
One potential caveat is that Napier created a team rule in which scholarship players were to pay $50 to the Louisiana athletic department to become members of the Ragin’ Cajuns Athletics Foundation. The practice was eventually ended after public outcry brought the practice under fire.
Sonny Dykes — SMU head coach
Arkansas fans have learned the hard way how former SMU head coaches fare in the SEC, but what about a man who’s had more success than his predecessor in Dallas?
Sonny Dykes is among the more experienced head coaches in college football and has a proven track record everywhere he’s been. In a combined 10 years at Louisiana Tech, California and SMU, Dykes guided the respective programs to a 56-56 record — including four seasons of eight wins or better — after spending time as an assistant at Kentucky, Texas Tech and Arizona.
It’s also worth noting, he was responsible for the development of former No. 1 NFL draft pick Jared Goff and third-round pick Davis Webb during his time at Cal, turning a 1-11 program to an eight-win team in his third year.
With freshman quarterback Garrett Shrader cemented as next year’s starter should he stay in Starkville, Dyke’s track record with quarterbacks would give him instant credibility if he was awarded the job.
Bill Clark — University of Alabama-Birmingham head coach
Bill Clark is due for a big-time coaching job.
After resurrecting the UAB football program from the dead — literally — Clark has guided the Blazers to a 34-19 record over the past four seasons.
While he doesn’t have SEC experience, he is plenty familiar with the South. Before taking over at UAB, Clark spent five seasons as the defensive coordinator at South Alabama and one year as the head coach at Jacksonville State, where he was 11-4 in his lone season.
Clark is a defensive guy, and a school like MSU tends to trend toward offensive-minded coaches, but the Bulldogs would be wise to take a look at a man who has won 34 games at a school that didn’t have a football program just four years ago.
Mark Hudspeth — Austin Peay head coach
If MSU is looking to keep it in the family this go around, former Dan Mullen and Joe Moorhead assistant Mark Hudspeth makes plenty of sense.
Hudspeth spent three years as an assistant at MSU, most recently as the tight ends coach in 2018, and boasts head coaching experience at North Alabama, Louisiana and Austin Peay.
Hudspeth, a Louisville native, is also plenty familiar with the state of Mississippi as a whole, given he was previously an assistant at Delta State and served as the head coach at Winston Academy from 1996 to 1997.
Having already won 11 games and the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season title this year with the Governors, he was awarded a contract extension through 2024. That said, should the Bulldogs come calling, he’d be inclined to listen.
Outside shots
Jason Candle — Toledo head coach
Candle probably should’ve gotten a major head coaching job during last year’s bumrush. Despite that, it’d be surprising to see him stay at the helm at Toledo much longer after helping the Rockets to a 6-6 record this season.
A proven winner, he took over a program that had been stabilized under then-coach Matt Campbell — now at Iowa State. Five years into his tenure, Candle is 34-19 as the lead man — including an 11-3 season in 2017.
One knock on the 40-year-old is that he’s never coached outside the state of Ohio — offering some of the same fit issues Moorhead detractors have pointed to.
That said, Moorhead had never coached in the south and secured three straight top-25 classes during his time at MSU, so geography be damned.
Blake Anderson — Arkansas State head coach
It’s been a tough year for Blake Anderson in Jonesboro. Beyond the fact his team has lost 10 players to season-ending injuries and had used 39 different starters, Anderson has also had to cope with the passing of his wife Wendy, who died following a two-year bout with breast cancer Aug. 20.
Despite that, the 50-year-old head coach has done a magnificent job of righting the ship at Arkansas State as the Red Wolves are 47-30 under his watch and have yet to win less than seven games in a season during his tenure.
As for the fit, Anderson spent four years as an assistant at Southern Miss between 2008 and 2011 in addition to stops at New Mexico, Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana and North Carolina.
It’s also worth noting Auburn coach Gus Malzahn and former Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze spent time as the head man at ASU before bolting for SEC jobs. And while Freeze’s tenure was cut short due to a laundry list of improprieties, he and Malzahn both succeeded in the conference. Anderson could be the next on that list.
Bob Shoop — MSU defensive coordinator
Say what you will about the offense during the Joe Moorhead era, but the defense has been stout under the direction of Bob Shoop.
Shoop, a longtime coordinator with stops at MSU, Tennessee and Penn State, is a career assistant who has yet to find a head coaching job.
It’s widely held he’s hoped to be a head coach one day, and MSU could be just the place for that. In two years in Starkville, Shoop’s defenses have ranked No. 1 and No. 74 in the country. And while this year has seen a downturn due to a talent suck, the job he’s done in managing the suspensions of Willie Gay, Marcus Murphy and Lee Autry — all would-be starters who missed eight games this season — is admirable.
It’s unlikely MSU goes in house for a hire, but if it did, Shoop would be the guy.
Other names to watch:
Kevin Johns — Memphis offensive coordinator
Todd Grantham — Florida defensive coordinator
Seth Littrell — North Texas head coach
Geoff Collins — Georgia Tech head coach
Mike Leach — Washington St. head coach
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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