With The Texas And LSU Jobs Filled, College Football’s Coaching Carousel Is Hitting High Gear

All eyes have been on two college football head coaching vacancies over the last few weeks: LSU and Texas. The Tigers’ job opened up earlier this year after the school decided to fire Les Miles, while Longhorns coach Charlie Strong has seemed like a dead man walking ever since the team lost to Kansas last week.

Both of these jobs have been the two presumed landing spots for Tom Herman, the 41-year-old head coach at Houston who has become the hottest coaching commodity in the sport. On Thursday, it looked like the Longhorns’ decision to wait to fire Strong would cost them, as reports indicated that Herman was on the verge of accepting the LSU job.

But on Saturday, news broke that the Tigers had decided against hiring Herman. Instead, LSU decided to take the interim tag off of interim head coach Ed Orgeron.

https://twitter.com/RossDellenger/status/802507228334948352

Dellenger reported that Herman and LSU were indeed in deep talks, but also mentioned that Orgeron blew the school’s brass away during his interview on Friday. From a team perspective, this hire makes a ton of sense. Orgeron led the team to a 5-2 record after taking the job, and after the team blew out Texas A&M on Thursday night, the locker room chanted “Keep Coach O.”

The school confirmed these reports with a statement in which the school’s athletic director said “We got our man and he’s been here all along.”
https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/802572446914277378

This made Texas’ decision on where to go if it fired Strong really easy. Soon after the Orgeron news came down, Texas announced that it had decided to fire Strong.

Less than an hour later, ESPN reported that Herman was set to leave Houston and take the job in Austin.

https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/802560267607560192

This wasn’t a surprise, although it may have looked unlikely as of Thursday night when it looked like Herman was LSU-bound. Herman cut his teeth as a coach at schools across Texas from 1998-2008, and even spent two years as a graduate assistant with the Longhorns. Once it became evident that Strong’s days with the program were numbered, Herman was seen as the logical choice to be his replacement.

Thanks to Orgeron and Herman, college football’s two biggest coaching vacancies are filled. Also, with Herman off the market, all eyes are now going to be on Western Michigan’s P.J. Fleck, who was viewed as the other Group of Five coach who was in for a big payday this offseason.

Usually once college football’s coaching carousel gets going, hirings and firings happen really fast. Now that LSU and Texas have found their coaches, we’ll see what happens across the rest of the sport.