Speculating About Cal's Next Head Football Coach

Now that Justin Wilcox has been fired as Cal’s head football coach, speculation begins as to who Cal will hire to replace him.

Presumably football general manager Ron Rivera will be the major person involved in the search, and he probably has begun the process already.

Two names immediately crop up in speculation about possible candidates for the Cal job: UConn head coach Jim Mora and Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi

Mora, who reportedly is a candidate for the Stanford head coaching vacancy, would be a logical candidate for the Cal job after leading the Huskies to an 8-3 record this season, including a victory over Duke. Once the head coach of UCLA, Mora is familiar with Cal program, and as a former defensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers he’s familiar with the Bay Area.

At this point there is no indication that Mora would be interested in the Cal opening as we are in the early speculation period.

But two other coaching situations should influence Cal’s search.

First is the Indiana situation. Indiana’s mediocre football history was similar to Cal’s until it hired Curt Cignetti. He turned the Hoosiers into a national championship contender after years of being one of the Big Tenn’s bottom feeders.

Cignetti came to Indiana after two years of great success at James Madison. It might make sense for Cal to look at other head coaches at Group of Five programs.

That would include the likes of Bob Chesney, who has led James Madison of the Sun Belt to an 11-1 record this year; Sean Lewis, head coach of the San Diego State team that hammered Cal this year and has the Aztecs in first place in the Mountain West; Jason Eck, the New Mexico head coach who has lifted the Lobos to an 8-3 record this season; Dan Mullen, a former Florida head coach who has led UNLV to a 9-2 record this season; Jon Sumrall, the head coach of a 9-2 Tulane team currently ranked No. 22; Jamey Chadwell, whose Liberty team is 4-7 this year but went 13-1 two years ago; Ryan Silverfield, who has built Memphis into a perennial American Conference contender; Eric Morris, whose North Texas team is 10-1 this season, and Jeff Traylor, who has had success at Texas-San Antonio.

The other coaching situation of note involved the hiring of Jeff Tedford, the most successful Cal head coach in the past 70 years. Tedford had no head coaching experience when he was hired at Cal, earning his reputation as an offensive mind as the offensive coordinator at Oregon.

That immediately leads to thoughts of current Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein as a Cal possibility.

However, there is one coordinator that might top the list, and that's Oregon defensive coordinator Lupoi. Lupoi is a former Cal player and former Golden Bears assistant coach, and though he has never been a head coach, he seems ready for that step, especially with his Cal connections as well as his experience in the NFL. He was a defensive coordinator at Alabama and an assistant coach for several NFL teams.

However, Wilcox had built his reputation as a defensive coordinator before being hired for his first head coaching job at Cal, so Golden Bears’ administrators may be wary of taking that path again.

Current Cal offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin, who had success as Boise State's head coach and less success as Auburn's head coach, and Nick Rolovich, who is Cal's interim head coach and was the head coach at Washington State, might get consideration for the Bears' head coaching vacancy, especially if hiring one of those two would help keep freshman quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele at Cal.

Then there are the many fired head coaches from Power Four conferences that are now available or will be soon. But besides James Franklin, who took the Virginia Tech job, and Brian Kelly, who presumably would be looking for job other than Cal, the other head coaches out of work are unlikely to be candidates at Cal.

Three other names to throw out there just for the heck of it: Brent Vigen, the head coach of perennial FCS powerhouse Montana State; Steve Wilks, the New York Jets defensive coordinator who was an assistant under Rivera with the Carolina Panthers, and DeSean Jackson, a former Cal star who is now the head coach at Delaware State. Jackson has virtually no chance to land the Cal job, but you can expect his named to be mentioned in connection with the Cal opening because of his ties to the school.

The coach-availability situation is fluid, as vacancies get filled, creating new vacancies, and new names will crop up until a new Cal head coach is named.