ANALYSIS: COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Will doors open for Gill?
A glass ceiling remains for minority coaches
Turner Gill should be a top candidate for job openings at Syracuse, Clemson and Tennessee. Bowl Championship Series schools should come after him the same way they once wooed Urban Meyer, Jim Grobe, Randy Walker and Terry Hoeppner.
In three seasons at the University at Buffalo, Gill has claimed two Mid-American Conference divisional titles and will play for the program’s first MAC championship next week in Detroit. He brought Nebraska’s winning philosophy to Amherst and quickly turned around a program that was considered the worst in the country before he took over in 2005.
But whether Gill, one of only four African- American coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A), gets serious consideration from BCS programs is up for debate. If you look at the numbers, African- American coaches aren’t receiving the opportunities to lead in the FBS.
“I know where this program was and I know the potential Turner has,” UB Athletic Director Warde Manuel said. “He is one of the up-and-coming coaches in the country.”
But will he get a chance to prove it at a BCS school? You can count the number of African- American coaches on one hand: Gill, Mississippi State’s Sylvester Croom, Houston’s Kevin Sumlin and Miami’s Randy Shannon. Washington’s Tyrone Willingham and Kansas State’s Ron Prince were fired during the season.
If Gill moves on from UB to another FBS program, he will be one of a handful of African- American coaches to do so. Willingham went from Stanford to Notre Dame and Dennis Green took the Stanford job after Northwestern, but not before a stint in the NFL. Ron Cooper left Eastern Michigan for Louisville in the early ’90s.
Most qualified black coaches are relegated to token interviews, such as when Washington recently interviewed Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood. Why else would the Huskies consider a coach whose offense is ranked 57th in the country and recently had his play-calling duties taken away by head coach Charlie Weis?
Before receiving an opportunity at Buffalo, Gill officially interviewed at Sam Houston State, Missouri, New Mexico State and Nebraska. They all told him the same thing.
“Not the right fit,” he said. “The words ‘not the right fit’ can be looked at in several ways. Not to say that you weren’t qualified but maybe they want a guy who’s going to be there for four-five years or has a different offensive or defensive philosophy. There’s so many different dynamics to the word ‘fit.’ ”
With that in mind, why wouldn’t Gill be a good fit at Syracuse? He has Northeast ties now and with all the recruiting bells and whistles the Orange have to offer there’s little doubt he could recruit top-notch talent to Central New York.
Why wouldn’t Gill be a good fit at Tennessee? Word is the Vols want to make a big splash, and who better to breathe life into a struggling program than a young coach who can recruit the South?
Why wouldn’t Gill be a good fit at Clemson? The Tigers haven’t been to what is now considered a BCS bowl since the Orange Bowl in 1982. Perhaps Gill can lead them over the hump.
“If [the minority candidate for a job is] not the right one, then he’s not the right one,” Gill said. “But what if he is?”
Whatever happens, Gill is one of the first minorities to enjoy success at the mid-major level, taking a noted bad job and turning it into a winner.
Minority candidates like Illinois offensive coordinator Mike Locksley and defensive coordinators DeWayne Walker from UCLA, Florida’s Charlie Strong and Louisville’s Ron English are considered more than qualified to become head coaches on the Bowl Subdivision level, as is Rod Broadway of Grambling State.
The only question is, will they receive the opportunity? Chances are, they won’t.
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