After losing Manny Diaz shortly after hiring him to be the head coach, the Temple Owls are in the midst of a coaching search for the second time this offseason. Beginning this week, Temple is expected to begin conducting face-to-face interviews with potential candidates to be the next head coach of the Owls, according to a report from Philly.com.
While having to re-start a coaching search for the second time in the offseason is far from an ideal situation, Temple may have already had a good feeling on where to begin. Before hiring Diaz, Temple had evaluated a handful of other potential options for the job including Greg Schiano of Ohio State, Don Brown of Michigan and Mike Elko of Texas A&M. None of those options have moved on to other positions since Temple went through this process before, but it is unknown if those options are still being considered by Temple at this time. And if those are targets for the Owls this time around, what interest would any of those candidates potentially have in the job after being passed over in favor of Diaz previously?
A timeline for the decision for Temple would ideally fall in line with sometime this week, although the report from Philly.com notes the Owls will be content to allow a little extra time pass if it means being able to make the hire they feel most comfortable with. That logic makes sense as Temple really doesn’t want to mess up this coaching hire.
The football program has had a good track record of hiring coaches going for them right now. Al Golden was hired when the Temple football program was practically on its deathbed and he raised the bar with a new mentality that led to Temple making a bowl game before Golden was hired away by Miami. Steve Addazio was then hired and he delivered a rare bowl victory for the Owls before being hired away by Boston College. Matt Rhule continued to grow the program and coached the Owls to two appearances in the AAC Championship Game, winning the second trip for a conference title to add to the trophy case in Philadelphia. Rhule was hired by Baylor, leading to the hiring of Geoff Collins, who was just hired by Georgia Tech following an encouraging run.
Temple is currently one of two FBS programs currently searching for a new head coach. Troy joined that party with the loss of Neal Brown to West Virginia. We’ll see if any other jobs open up as the NFL coaching carousel continues to spin, but Temple is really hoping they won’t have to conduct another coaching search for another few years at the very least at this point.