Mark Coyle left the top job at Boise State for the athletics director’s chair at Syracuse in June of 2015.
By May of 2016, he’s already gone.
Coyle informed the Orange on Wednesday he is leaving the school, and at the same time Minnesota named him its lone finalist for the Gophers’ vacant AD job.
“University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler has announced Mark Coyle as the finalist for the university’s director of Gopher Athletics position,” Minnesota said in a statement.”... Coyle is visiting campus Wednesday to interview with the search committee, and meet with coaches and other leaders in Gopher Athletics, faculty, and senior university leaders as part of the final steps of a comprehensive national search.”
Though Coyle hasn’t officially been hired yet, Minnesota wouldn’t announce his candidacy unless he was going to be the guy.
Syracuse announced Coyle’s departure with a statement that says more in what it doesn’t say than what it actually says: “Mark Coyle has informed the University that, for family reasons, he is leaving the University for a position at Minnesota. We wish him well.”
The Minnesota AD job became open when Norwood Teague resigned in August among claims of sexual impropriety.
In his short time at Syracuse, Coyle fired the Orange’s head football coach Scott Shafer and replaced him with Bowling Green head coach Dino Babers and his Baylor-style offense. At Minnesota, he’ll inherit a situation where Tracy Claeys stepped in as interim head coach when Jerry Kill resigned in late October due to health concerns, then was handed a three-year contract after two weeks as the head man.