With Ryan Silverfield taking the head-coaching job at Arkansas, a head coach search begins for Memphis football. There are many candidates across college football, from big SEC names to rising group of 5 coaches.
The two coaches who seem to be at the top of many Memphis fans' minds right now are Jerry Mack, head coach of Kennesaw State, and Will Stein, offensive coordinator of Oregon.
Jerry Mack is from Memphis and was on the team’s coaching staff for 2011. He was the running backs coach at the University of Tennessee and the Jacksonville Jaguars before he took the Kennesaw State job this season. In only their second season at the FBS level, Mack has improved them from 1-11 to 9-3, and they are playing in the Conference USA championship.
Will Stein was a wide receivers coach at UTSA and became the co-offensive coordinator in 2022. That season, UTSA went 11-3 and averaged 36.8 points per game, 14th in the country. After that, he was hired as the offensive coordinator for Oregon and in his three years there they have a record of 36-4. This season Oregon averaged 38.2 points per game, 9th in the country. Oregon’s head coach, Dan Lanning, was an assistant at Memphis under Mike Norvell.
Other group of 5 candidates are Jason Eck at New Mexico and Tyson Helton at Western Kentucky.
Jason Eck coached on the FCS level at Idaho and took the New Mexico job this season. They went 9-3, their first winning season since 2016, and are competing for a Mountain West conference championship.
Tyson Helton has coached Western Kentucky for seven years and has a record of 56-36. He only has one losing season and has six seasons of at least 8 wins, although he has not won a conference championship.
Other potential suitors include Tim Cramsey, the current offensive coordinator at Memphis, Tim Banks, the defensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee, and Brennan Marion, the head coach of Sacramento State.
Tim Cramsey became the offensive coordinator at Memphis in 2022. Memphis has had a top 20 offense in the country for the last three seasons, but there have been questions about his playcalling and game plans.
Tim Banks has been the defensive coordinator at Tennessee since 2021. He has ties to Memphis and was an assistant during 2001 and 2002. He has had an up-and-down career with Tennessee. This season Tennessee was 92nd in points allowed but they were 7th in 2024 and 23rd in 2023.
Brennan Marion is currently a head coach at the FCS level for Sacramento State. He developed the GoGo offense and was the offensive coordinator at UNLV for 2023 and 2024. UNLV was 22nd and 15th in points per game while he was there, but he has a bad reputation in the industry.
There are also two huge wild card candidates who need to be considered but would not be very likely to happen. These are Mike Norvell and Hugh Freeze.
Norvell is beloved in Memphis for the success he had as the head coach from 2016 to 2019 when he won a conference championship for the Tigers. He left for Florida State and has had a roller-coaster career there. He started out badly but found huge success when he went 10-3 in 2022 then 13-1 with an undefeated regular season in 2023. Since then, he has gone 2-10 and 5-7. He has a contract with Florida State through 2031, and they have said he will be back next season but with the calls to fire him or for him to quit, you never know what will happen in college football.
Hugh Freeze was recently fired by Auburn after having three straight losing seasons. He had success at Ole Miss but resigned in 2017 among accusations of personal misconduct and an NCAA investigation. He then went to Liberty and had great success, highlighted by a 10-1 season in 2020. He didn’t work out at Auburn and might take time off from football, but there’s always a chance he wants to still coach and finds a home in Memphis.
