It's early as these things go and that being the case, East Carolina's Skip Holtz has only been mentioned as a possible candidate for three coaching jobs so far.
In alphabetical order, the list is: Kansas, Notre Dame and Virginia.
At this point, Holtz isn't considered the front-runner anywhere.
At Kansas, where Mark Mangino technically still is in control, the hot talk is all about Boise State's Chris Peterson and Texas Christian's Gary Patterson.
Patterson also is in the conversation at Notre Dame, where the front-runner for Charlie Weis' former job appears to be Cincinnati's Brian Kelly with Iowa's Kirk Ferentz and Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald in the mix.
The Irish would prefer Florida's Urban Meyer or Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, but both are apparently in no mood to jump. Meyer certainly won't make waves as long as the Gators are in the national title chase.
Virginia's hunt for Al Groh's successor is more or less formless. Wake Forest's Jim Grobe (a former Cavalier player), Richmond's Mike London, Temple's Al Golden and Louisiana Tech's Derek Dooley (famous coaching tree, ex-Cav) have been mentioned in addition to Kelly and Holtz.
Holtz, who doesn't have an agent, turned down Syracuse last season and is busy preparing the Pirates to host Saturday's Conference USA title game against Houston.
Since taking over a terrible team from John Thompson, Holtz has gone 37-26 overall and 29-12 in league games.
One thing to keep in mind is that Holtz is a Notre Dame alum and knows the ropes from watching his father, Lou, coach in South Bend for 10 seasons in the 1980s and '90s.
One other thing to keep in mind is that Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins once hired Holtz as the head coach at Connecticut.
Comments
from hot to cool
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 22:22 — gvillegatrand now hes gotten warmer again. beat the Coogs and then beat an SEC team and it is later, Skipper. thx for the memories!
"Holtz has gone 37-26
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 17:22 — TheBigGuy"Holtz has gone 37-26 overall and 29-12 in league games."
Interpretation: Holtz is 8-14 outside the sorry C-USA. ECU, you can keep him.
Yeah...
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 17:43 — YAR8packBecause it's so easy to take a school in a lower level conference that only won 3 games in two years to national prominence over night. You. Are. Not. Intelligent.
Look at what Skip has done in Greenville lately. I don't think he's a legit "big time" coaching hire right now, but what he has done for ECU is nothing short of solid good.
I can't believe that came
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 22:03 — psh0117I can't believe that came from a pack fan. But so true, I'm glad someone besides us Pirates can recognize what Skip has done for our program. I do however think that he ready for a more challenging step. I don’t think he's ready for ND, which is where he wants to go, but I think he is ready for a BCS school, maybe not SEC or Big 12, but he could definitely make an impact. I don't want to see him go, but he has proved he knows what he's doing.
Anomaly
Wed, 12/02/2009 - 11:10 — YAR8packYeah. I'm a loyal supporter of the Pack and the Pirates. Weird. I know. I have degrees from both universities. I don't understand the whole rivalry talk that for some strange reason exists between both schools. If they played every year, I could see a rivalry. However, being that they play once every two to three years, I don't see the validity of that other than to sell t-shirts.
Hmm
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 16:21 — YAR8packIsn't Mangino still the coach at KU? Also. Skip would be crazy to go to ND. He'd not only have the shadow of Touchdown Jesus over his shoulder, he'd have Lou's lisp right behind him as well. I think and hope Skip's much smarter than to go there. Now. If Kelly gets the ND job, I could see Skip jumping to that position. The UVA position? Ehh. I don't think he's their type of guy. Could be wrong. Here's to hoping Skip is navigating the Pirates' ship in 2010.
I think he will stick around.
Tue, 12/01/2009 - 17:27 — willncsuND would pay crazy money though. At least quadruple his current salary.