Southern Miss AD tells us when he’d like to hire a coach and how much he’s willing to pay
The search to find a new Southern Miss football coach is about to hit full stride.
Jay Hopson resigned as head coach on Sept. 7, giving USM athletic director Jeremy McClain ample time to ready a list of candidates as he prepares to find his replacement.
Scotty Walden is in charge of the program on an interim basis and he’s made it clear that he would like to be the full-time head coach. But the 2020 season has turned chaotic due to COVID-19 pandemic with the Golden Eagles sitting at 1-4 after having a pair of games postponed by the coronavirus. Walden returned to the office on Monday six days after testing positive and missing last week’s 56-35 loss at Liberty.
With Walden still trying to make a case to be considered for the job, McClain told the Sun Herald on Friday that he hopes to have a full-time head coach in place by the end of November.
“(November is important) from the standpoint of wanting to get in front of the people we’re interested in,” McClain said. “There’s been great interest and I’m not surprised by that at all.
“Just because of the nature of the season, there’s going to be some people we won’t see face-to-face until later in the year. November is going to be key because we’re easing toward the end of the season.”
McClain said the postponement of a pair of contests — a home game against FAU and a trip to UTEP — complicates the path ahead for the search. C-USA has already pushed its title game back to Dec. 18 to allow games to be rescheduled, but dates have yet to be set for the FAU or UTEP contests.
“It’s typical 2020. Nothing is easy,” McClain said. “Normally you would look at that Thanksgiving weekend to wraps things up, but we still have an eye positioned on late November. With games still going on, that makes it a little awkward for everybody. We’ll work through it.”
McClain pointed out that the early signing period is still set to begin Dec. 16 and it would help a new coach to have at least a couple of weeks to put together a group of signees.
How much money will the USM football coach make?
The issue of money is a limitation that every Group of 5 program deals with when it tries to hire a new coach, and that’s no different at Southern Miss.
Hopson was making $500,000 a year in base salary — the lowest in Conference USA.
However, McClain believes that he will put forward a competitive offer to his preferred candidate.
“My plan is that we’re resourced in a way where we can be in the top half in the conference. I’ll say the top five in Conference USA,” McClain said. “That doesn’t mean just the head coach’s salary. That’s just one piece. You also have the assistant coaches’ budget and you want to make sure you’re resourced in the right way.
“It will depend on who we hire just like any job. It’ll be dictated by the market, but we’re going to put ourselves in the right position. As a whole from the resourcing standpoint, we want to make sure we’re in the top part of the conference.”
The seven highest-paid coaches in C-USA all make north of $750,000, according to a USA Today database:
- 1. Seth Littrell, North Texas — $1.85 million.
- 2. Bill Clark, UAB — $1.5 million.
- 3. Mike Bloomgren, Rice — $1.33 million.
- 4. Butch Davis, FIU — $1.04 million.
- 5. Rick Stockstill, Middle Tennessee — $912,504.
- 6. Will Healy, Charlotte — $855,000.
- 7. Ricky Rahne, Old Dominion — $775,000.
If USM does move closer to the $1 million mark, that should broaden the field of candidates significantly.
McClain said that he’s encouraged by what he’s hearing from USM’s athletic boosters as he puts together a financial package for the next head coach.
“I think people are engaged,” he said. “I’ve visited several people and we’ve talked about what it takes to make sure the program is headed in the right direction. We’re at a critical stage. People have responded and they want us to be successful. It takes all of us. That won’t stop at the end of November.”
One cost-saving measure that McClain has taken is that he has chosen not to employ a search firm to help with the new hire.
“Search firms have a place, but it depends on the situation,” he said. “We felt like given our pool of candidates and the timeline, we felt comfortable we could navigate the process without a search firm.”
Southern Miss may eye offensive coaches
Throughout USM football’s history, the head coaches who have had the most success typically come from the offensive side. Jeff Bower, Larry Fedora, Bobby Collins and Todd Monken were all offensive coordinators before they were handed the top job at Southern Miss.
After Hopson’s five seasons featured inconsistent play on offense, it’s widely assumed that USM will look to hire a top offensive mind as his replacement.
McClain didn’t commit to going one way or the other with his hire.
“I get that there’s a lean that way maybe because of the success we’ve had there in the past, but I don’t go into this putting parameters on it,” he said. “You run the risk of missing on some candidates. I care less about what side of the ball that person coached on and more about their philosophy and the staff they can put together.”
McClain’s main goal is to find someone who can handle all aspects of being a head coach.
“I think it has to be someone who can build relationships,” he said. “The head coach position is much more than X’s and O’s. We need someone with a CEO-type of personality that can manage and see the big picture. Someone who can build relationships outside the program, across campus and with alumni and supporters. Someone who can put together a staff in our area that makes sense.
“We’re fortunate to be in a great recruiting footprint. We have to make sure whoever comes in maximizes that.”
McClain acknowledges that this hire is absolutely critical for USM as Conference USA and the rest of Group of 5 programs continue to fall behind the higher-resourced conferences.
“It’s important to get the right person and find somebody who matches our identity,” he said. It’s a critical hire and one that will dictate the future of our program for years.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 1:36 PM.
