The Miami coaching search has heated up in the past week.
Sources tell FOX Sports that former Miami head coach Butch Davis and ex-Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano, a former ‘Canes DC, interviewed in the past few days. The Sun-Sentinel reports that Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen also has interviewed for the job and that ex-Georgia head coach Mark Richt, a Miami QB in the early ’80s, also is interviewing for it. Mullen interviewed for the Miami job years ago when Al Golden ended up getting the position.
A source told FOX that the 49-year-old Schiano has impressed several people connected to the ‘Canes search and that Davis has strong support from key money people at the university. There was considerable resistance to Davis from the school’s previous regime, but just how much of that is working against him this time is unclear.
There has been speculation that Miami wouldn’t or couldn’t afford to pay its new coach above $3 million a year (Golden made around $2.5 million, reportedly), but a source said that the school may be able to pay its new coach around $4 million per year.
A source close to the search says Miami would like to have its new coach in place by Sunday.
Schiano spent two seasons as the ‘Canes’ DC under Davis before going home to New Jersey, where he took an awful Rutgers program and made it a perennial bowl team. Schiano does have a rep as a micromanager, but he also consistently produced some of the highest academic-achieving programs in college football. He proved to be a shrewd evaluator and developer of talent at Rutgers, where many of his players have turned into solid NFL talent. He always worked hard to maintain and build a strong presence in the state of Florida. In 2006, Schiano won National Coach of the Year honors. His career record in bowls is 5-1.
The 64-year-old Davis took Miami and led it back from devastating sanctions, building the most talented team in college football history. Of course, he wasn’t around to coach that group in 2001 because he’d left to coach the Cleveland Browns. That didn’t go very well. Then Davis got the UNC job. He stockpiled the place with more first-round talent, but the school had all sorts of issues and his program imploded.
Mullen, 43, is a former Florida OC who has gone 54-35 at a very tough job in the SEC West. His Bulldogs are 18-7 the past two seasons, although they have dropped three of their past four to archrival Ole Miss.
The 55-year-old Richt spent 15 seasons at Georgia and won two SEC titles, but he was fired Sunday. His record is a stellar 145-51. Before getting the Georgia job, he spent a decade on Bobby Bowden’s staff at Florida State.
Bruce Feldman is a senior college football reporter and columnist for FOXSports.com and FS1. He is also a New York Times best-selling author. His new book, “The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks,” came out in October 2014. Follow him on Twitter @BruceFeldmanCFB and Facebook.
