The Hurricanes could be inching ever closer to naming their next football coach.
Since the regular season ended Friday with a win over Pittsburgh, Miami officials have been busy interviewing several candidates who are in the running to become the school’s permanent coach, its fourth since the Hurricanes won a national title in 2001.
One of the candidates meeting with Miami was the man who put together that championship roster, former Hurricanes coach Butch Davis, a source told the Sun Sentinel. Others that have interviewed with Miami, the source indicated, include former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano, a former Hurricanes assistant, and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen.
While those interviews came over the weekend, the source also confirmed that former Georgia coach Mark Richt, who was fired this weekend, was set to meet with Miami on Tuesday.
Richt, a former standout quarterback at Boca Raton High and a Hurricanes backup, said during his final news conference at Georgia that he was still interested in coaching and wanted to be more hands-on with play calling and quarterbacks coaching than he had been of late with the Bulldogs.
He could have those opportunities at Miami, which returns a talented young signal caller in Brad Kaaya, but the Hurricanes are not believed to be Richt’s only suitors. Maryland, Missouri and Virginia could be among the school’s competing with Miami for Richt’s services, and the coach himself said Monday night during his weekly radio show that he’d been contacted by “about five” schools seeking to fill open jobs.
“It’s kinda crazy. But I’m not sure, again, what I’m gonna do yet,” Richt said on the radio according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But it’s nice to have opportunities and options.”
Richt, 55, was fired Sunday after 15 seasons at Georgia, where he had a 145-51 record with two SEC championships. The Bulldogs played in five conference title games during his time as coach, but his resume and four straight wins to close the season weren’t enough to convince Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity to keep Richt in Athens.
But Richt has public support from at least one Hurricane, running back Mark Walton who wrote on Twitter, “I will love to see Mark Richt in [an] orange and green coaching uniform in 2016 as a Hurricane.” Walton, Miami’s second-leading rusher, was recruited by Georgia coming out of Miami’s Booker T. Washington High School.
For his part, Davis was mum about his meeting with Miami during his weekly radio segment with 790 The Ticket on Monday. The former Hurricanes coach, who has been vocal about his desire to return to Coral Gables, declined to comment about the interview saying it was presently “inappropriate” to discuss the situation.
“I think it’s public knowledge that I’d love to be the head coach at the University of Miami. I’ve stated that pretty much emphatically for about the last month,” Davis told the radio station. “But I think making any comments at this particular time is just kind of inappropriate. People are just going to have to live with rumors for the time being and we’ll see how it plays out.”
Over the weekend, FootballScoop.com reported that the 64-year-old Davis, who coached the Hurricanes from 1995-2000, had an “extremely positive” meeting with Miami and the site cited an anonymous source as saying that meeting “cleared some hurdles” for Davis to return to Miami.
Schiano, meanwhile, could also be a candidate at Rutgers, where he coached from 2001-11 leaving the college ranks to coach the Buccaneers. The former defensive coordinator at Miami was 68-67 at Rutgers, leading the Scarlet Knights from a 2-9 mark his first season there to a pair of nine-win seasons and an 11-win season before leaving for the NFL.
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