Rumor Mill Hits Full Speed – Where Will Virginia Football Turn Next?

The University of Virginia announced that coach Mike London resigned from his position Sunday.

UVA director of athletics Craig Littlepage also announced in an official news release that a coaching search is underway to find the 40th football coach in UVA’s program history. Littlepage did not provide a time frame for concluding the search, citing the fact that many of the possible candidates will be involved in postseason play. Littlepage will not make further comments until the search has concluded.

“In our search, we will look for a coach who’s demonstrated the ability to implement his system and achieved a consistent level of success,” Littlepage said in the news release. “The coach will have experience recruiting and developing student-athletes who fit his profile for success on the field and in the classroom. We expect our football program to compete for the Coastal Division title on an annual basis, which puts us in a position to win the ACC championship and be competitive nationally. This is consistent with the expectations for each of our sport programs.”

While Littlepage is not expected to make further comments, the rumor mill and media reports are a far different story. In fact, prospective names have been tossed about on the Sabre message board for most of November even though no official news about London had been announced. Here are some of the names floating around the rumor mill …

National Media

FoxSports.com’s Bruce Feldman writes that “The UVA coaching job is considered in the upper half of Power 5 jobs by many coaches FOX Sports has spoken to this fall. It’s in a strong recruiting area, has decent resources, is in a very favorable half of the ACC (the Coastal) and the next coach will inherit some talented players that London is leaving behind.” He mentions Greg Schiano (former Rutgers coach), Matt Rhule (current Temple coach), Al Golden (former Miami coach and former UVA assistant), and Troy Calhoun (current Air Force coach) as candidates that could get consideration. Read the full take here/

Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel has the opposite opinion and writes that “There are a lot of power brokers around the industry shaking their heads at the Cavaliers. Craig Littlepage’s decision to wait until the end of the season to fire Mike London could end up costing the school a shot at a quality coach.” He mentioned Schiano and Rhule as well along with Ken Niumatalolo (current coach at Navy), Jeff Brohm (current coach at Western Kentucky), and Scott Frost (offensive coordinator at Oregon). He predicts Schiano as the hired. Read it here.

Garry Smits at Jacksonville.com wrote about Georgia firing Mark Richt on Sunday and slipped this line in the article: “Richt has been rumored to land at Virginia, which accepted the resignation of coach Mike London on Sunday about the same time the Richt news broke.”

Pat Forde at Yahoo! Sports wrote midweek that “This could be a job that appeals to Brohm, whose high-octane offense seemingly would play well for a fan base anesthetized by six years of LondonBall. Whether Brohm (17-7 in two seasons at WKU) would appeal to Virginia remains to be seen.” Read Forde’s full column here.

Local Media

Doug Doughty of The Roanoke Times (here) and David Teel of The Daily Press (here) each reported that Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Sanford Jr. is getting serious consideration, though neither cited soures and Doughty called it a “hunch” that he could be the next coach.

The Daily Progress listed Mack Brown (former Texas coach), Pep Hamilton (former Stanford offensive coordinator), Dan Mullen (Mississippi State), Dino Babers (Bowling Green), P.J. Fleck (Western Michigan), Calhoun, Brohm, Golden, Niumatalolo, Schiano, and Richt. Read it
here.

Message Boards

TheSabre.com message boards have listed every name above at some point or another over the course of November as well as other names like Lincoln Riley (Oklahoma offensive coordinator), Justin Fuente (Memphis coach since hired by Virginia Tech), Matt Campbell (Toledo coach since hired by Iowa State), Tom Herman (Houston coach has reportedly backed off the South Carolina opening and may be in favor of staying put), Mike Bloomgren (Stanford offensive coordinator), and Kurt Roper (Cleveland Browns and former assistant at Duke and Florida).

If you want to follow the whirlwind on the football message board, just click here.