On Sunday, Boston College fired its head football coach, Steve Addazio. Addazio spent seven seasons at BC, finishing with a 44-44 record and leading the team to six bowl games. Despite his consistent record during his tenure in Chestnut Hill, he never won more than seven games in a season and never finished above third place in the ACC Atlantic Division. Additionally, Addazio only won one bowl game with the Eagles. This came in 2016 with a 36-30 victory over Maryland in the Quick Lane Bowl. Now that Addazio is gone, BC will attempt to hire a new coach that will take them back to their successes in the 2000s. Here are some options for Addazio’s successor.
Chip Kelly
This one is unlikely, but a top choice nonetheless. Kelly made his mark on the college football scene during his four years at Oregon where he went 46-7 and won three PAC-12 titles. He also won the Rose Bowl in 2011 and the Fiesta Bowl in 2012. Following his triumphs at Oregon, Kelly had an unsuccessful four-year stint in the NFL with the Eagles and the 49ers before returning to college in 2018 to coach UCLA. In two years at UCLA, he posted a 7-17 record, and although this is poor, it is not mainly his fault. Kelly inherited an awful team and program upon arriving in Southern California but has done a great job bringing in strong recruiting classes. I doubt UCLA will move on from the New England native this early, but if they do, Boston would be a perfect landing place.
Lane Kiffin
Kiffin deserves to be at a Power Five school. After one year at Tennessee, Kiffin moved to USC where he spent three full seasons before being fired at the beginning of the 2013 season. At USC, he finished 28-15, with his best finish coming in 2011 when the Trojans ended the year with a 10-2 record and ranked sixth in the nation. Kiffin did not win a bowl game at USC, but this was mainly because his team was banned from postseason play in his first two years. Now, the former Oakland Raiders coach is the head coach at Florida Atlantic, where he has turned the small program around. Kiffin has recorded a 25-13 record at FAU in his three years there, along with a Boca Raton Bowl win in 2017. He is too good of a coach to be wasting away in Conference-USA, and BC would be a step up.
Jim McElwain
McElwain wins wherever he goes. While serving as the offensive coordinator at Alabama, McElwain oversaw one of the strongest offenses in college football and won three National Championships. He then spent three seasons at Colorado State where he took a historically bad program to a 10-2 record in 2014. His work in Colorado got him the head coaching job at Florida where he won back-to-back SEC East titles in 2015-16. He finished at Florida with a 22-12 record and was fired after a poor start to the 2017 season. McElwain is now the head coach at Central Michigan. He went 8-4 in his first year there, leading a miraculous turnaround from a 1-11 season last year. McElwain would be a great addition for BC, bringing experience and talent.
Luke Fickell
Fickell spent 15 years on the coaching staff at Ohio State, serving as interim head coach during part of 2011 and as the co-defensive coordinator from 2005 to 2016. There, he worked closely with BC athletic director Martin Jarmond for eight seasons while Jarmond was the assistant athletic director at Ohio State. Fickell became the coach of Cincinnati in 2017, and he has really impressed after a poor 4-8 season in his first year there. Last year, Fickell oversaw a huge turnaround as the Bearcats finished in the top-25, going 11-2 and beating Virginia Tech in the Military Bowl. This season, he is doing the same, leading his team to a solid 10-2 record. Fickell’s intelligent football brain and his links to Jarmond make him a prime candidate for the BC job.
Rich Rodriguez
Many people will say Rodriguez is washed-up, but I believe that Rich Rod still has a lot left in the tank. Rodriguez earned the head coaching job at Michigan in 2008 after turning West Virginia into a perennial powerhouse. In seven years with the Mountaineers, he went 60-26 with four Big East titles, a Sugar Bowl win in 2005, and narrowly missing a National Championship appearance multiple times. At Michigan, Rodriguez did not impress and was fired after three mediocre, underperforming seasons. He then spent six seasons at Arizona, finishing with a 43-35 record, three bowl game wins, and a Fiesta Bowl berth. Rodriguez just finished his first year as the offensive coordinator for Ole Miss and if he ever wants to get back into head coaching, BC seems like a good option for him.
As always, let me know what you think. Are there any coaches that you disagree with on my list? Are there any coaches that you think BC should look at that I didn’t talk about?
