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The Kentucky Wildcats just enjoyed one of the best seasons in program history. So of course, other schools want to get in on the action, and it may come by hiring away Kentucky assistants.
According to FootballScoop, offensive coordinator Eddie Gran is a target for the open Charlotte head-coaching job. The 49ers just recently became an FBS-affiliated school, so they obviously want to make a splash with their next hire.
Adding to this, Bruce Feldman, one of the best in the business, is also hearing Gran is a candidate:
A couple of names to keep in mind with the #Charlotte HC search back on: Will Healy, who completely turned around Austin Peay; #Kentucky OC Eddie Gran with his deep recruiting ties in the South & #Rams asst Jedd Fisch who almost got the Arizona HC job last year.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 30, 2018
However, as the FootballScoop story notes, they don’t exactly have a lot of money to throw at this next coach, and Gran already makes a pretty penny at Kentucky. Still, being a head coach is hard to pass on, and for Gran, he may not get many, if any more chances to become one if Charlotte does indeed offer him the job.
But Gran won’t be the only UK assistant that gets head-coaching buzz. The Central Michigan Chippewas finished their regular season with a losing record of 1-11. After the season the university decided to part ways with current head football coach, John Bonamego.
With the departure of Bonamego there have been several interesting names in the candidate list for the head coaching job for the Chippewas. A lot of the candidates have either previous major college head coaching experience, very successful small college head coaching careers, or they are coordinators/assistants with no head coaching experience at all.
One of the possible candidates that has been mentioned is UK defensive coordinator Matt House, per FootballScoop. After leading one of the biggest turnarounds of any defense in college football this season, House is definitely an interesting name to be thrown into the mix for the Chippewas head coaching position.
The Wildcats ended their season with House’s defense ranked 7th nationally in scoring defense only allowing 16 points per game, 18th in passing defense with only 181 yards per game, and they only allowed just over 150 yards rushing per game.
Another interesting name mentioned in the Central Michigan job hunt is former Oklahoma defensive coordinator, Mike Stoops (the brother of Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops). Stoops was let go from Oklahoma back in early October following some defensive struggles with the Sooners. Mike Stoops has some roots in the midwest as the Youngstown, Ohio native had previous head coaching experience with the University of Arizona from 2004-2011 where he went 41-50 overall, including back to back 8-5 seasons in 2009 and 2010.
If the Chippewas could land Mike Stoops it would create quite a buzz in the MAC conference, but there are a number of other coaches that seem to be in the mix as well and those include: Tony Annese (Ferris State D-II), Bill Bedenbaugh (Oklahoma offensive line coach), Mark Staten (Michigan State offensive line coach), and Mike Yurcich (Oklahoma State offensive coordinator).
But if that doesn’t go through, perhaps Mark will look to bring Mike to UK in some coaching capacity.