Bruce Feldman: Chad Morris, Kirby Smart among Louisville Cardinals coaching candidates
With Charlie Strong taking the job to leave the Louisville Cardinals for the same job with the Texas Longhorns the list of possible candidates to replace him are taking center stage. CBS Sports’ Bruce Feldman ofers the list of candidates they will consider including Chad Morris and Kirby Smart.
With Charlie Strong off to #Texas, I'd expect #Louisville to consider Pat Narduzzi, Tom Herman, Chad Morris, Kirby Smart & Pete Lembo.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 4, 2014
Smart has been the longtime assistant under Nick Saban and won the Frank Broyles award as the nation’s top assistant in 2009. He has been mentioned for jobs in previous years, but has remained faithful to Alabama.
Narduzzi was the architect for the stout Michigan State Spartans defense and has been a part of Mark Dantonio’s staff since 2004 dating back to their time with the Cincinnati Bearcats.
Herman was hired by Urban Meyer to be his offensive coordinator when he was hired by Ohio State. Lembo is about to finish his third season as the head coach of Ball State where he went 10-2 and plays in the Go Daddy Bowl Sunday.
He has a 104-48 record over his 13 year coaching career that started at Lehigh and then Elon before arriving at Ball State. He brings an offensive background after being an offensive lineman with Georgetown.
The favorite of the group may be Chad Morris who put on a show running the offense for the Clemson Tigers in their Orange Bowl win over Ohio State when they scored 40 points and had 576 yards of offense.
Morris has served as the offensive coordinator under Dabo Swinney for three seasons after a one-year stint with Tulsa after a legendary high school coaching career in Texas.
He could follow the path of Art Briles, Gus Malzahn and Hugh Freeze to go from high school to college coordinator to head coach at a BCS program.