Eight down -- 10 if you include Ohio State and North Carolina -- and who knows how many head coaches to go.
In a press release confirming a morning’s worth of speculation, Memphis announced that Larry Porter has been relieved of his head-coaching duties effective immediately. Porter, who played for the Tigers, had just completed his second season at the school.
A press conference will be held Monday to discuss the coaching change and what the future may hold at the position.
“We want to thank Coach Porter for his efforts as our football coach but believe that it is in the best interest of our program to make a change at this point,” said Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson. “We were proud to have Larry Porter, one of our former football lettermen, as our head coach and wish him nothing but the best in his future athletic endeavors.”
“The expectations for the 2011 season were to see marked improvement in the team. Now that the season has been completed, I do not feel that we have seen enough improvement for the future to justify keeping this football staff in place for another year.”
Porter came to Memphis from LSU in November of 2009 as Tommy West‘s replacement, compiling a 3-21 record in his brief time with the Tigers.
As for potential replacements, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that Mike Leach will be a candidate at some point.