Whipple will officially "resign'' as UMass FB coach

While the cold and wet winds of an oncoming New England winter whipped through western Massachusetts UMass football coach Mark Whipple was 2,578 miles west in Arizona, waiting to see what the landscape of Minuteman football would look like in the next several days.

An announcement of Whipple's resignation is expected later Wednesday afternoon.

In Amherst, UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford was hunkered down dealing with the similar issues. What has been obvious for several days, but is still not an officially done deal is that Whipple, the man who brought a national championship 20 years ago as 1-AA program and was brought back a second time to revive UMass's fading chances as a relevant FBS team, will not be coaching UMass next season.

How and when that will officially be handled was complicated to some extent by a clause in Whipple's contract which gives him a buyout of $500,000 on his contract if he is dismissed before Dec. 1 and only $300,000 if he is fired after Dec. 1.

As one source familiar with the situation as it was unfolding said, ""He (Whipple) helped a lot of kids and did a lot of things for a lot of people, if he didn't win enough games, so be it.''

What was being worked on Wednesday afternoon was a compromise where Whipple "resigns'' as coach but will be kept on the UMass payroll for another six months in a transitional role with the administration.

Whipple is expected to return to Amherst on Thursday, talk to his team on Friday and then head back to his home in Arizona.

Once things are worked out with Whipple, UMass officials will work hard to find a replacement quickly since recruiting season is about to begin.

One name which could turn up on a short list of candidates is Duke Co-Defensive Coordinator Ben Albert, a 1995 UMass graduate, who had two stints on the UMass coaching staff, as well as stops at Boston College, Temple and with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Albert is also a native of New Jersey, which is also a plus in recruiting.

The money UMass has to offer could be a key, as well as the long range future of the program.

At a cashed strapped athletic program such as UMass, which has struggled as a football independent since leaving the MAC a few years ago, those figures are an issue not easily dismissed.

But it goes far beyond that for Bamford, who must now sell a football program to any new coach which has a bleak future at best. Schools such as Notre Dame and to a lesser extent BYU and Army can survive schedule-wise and income-wise as independents, without the security blankets (television money and bowl berths) of a conference membership.

It is uncertain how many qualified candidates might emerge for a job in which the future of the football program is a bigger question than the future of the next coach.

UMass, which ended its season with a 66-27 loss to the University of Georgia last Saturday to finish with a 4-8 record can not. UMass received a payment of slightly more than $2 million for being a pinata for the No. 5 ranked Bulldogs.

There are no immediate or obvious places in conferences for UMass football to land. In fact, the future of UMass even having a football program of any kind is a subject of ongoing campus debate.

Whipple did what he could with limited resources and various degrees of support, which was again displayed earlier this season when Whipple was suspended for a week without pay for making an inappropriate remark following a loss to Ohio University in which Whipple used the word "rape'' to describe an official's call against the Minutemen.

For a variety of reasons, it wasn't enough for UMass and leaves Whipple looking for his next challenge, which might be at Whipple's alma mater of Brown, which is looking for a coach to replace Phil Estes, who resigned earlier this week. Whipple could also return to the NFL, where he has made several stops as an assistant coach.

Sources close to Whipple say that the 62-year old coach's next stop would be back in the NFL.