By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

So how good is the UCF Head Coaching job? What names could get in the mix? Here is a breakdown of the job and the potential names to watch.

Jamey Chadwell (Liberty) is 57-17 as a full-time head coach, including a 21-4 run with the Flames.

The 47-year-old Tennessee native ran one of the most entertaining offenses in the country at Coastal Carolina, which seems like a good fit for UCF’s modern, up-tempo brand. Chadwell has never worked at a Power 4 program.

Scott Frost is beloved at UCF after going 13-0 in his second season. But he never had a winning record, with his 16-31 stint at Nebraska, and history suggests that these coaching sequels never live up to the standard of the original, and rarely go well.

G.J. Kinne (Texas State) was Malzahn’s co-offensive coordinator at UCF in 2021. The 36-year-old Texas native also fits the Knights’ identity.

Kinne led Incarnate Word to the FCS semifinals in 2021, and his 15-10 record with the Bobcats earned him a contract extension in November. Is changing jobs a viable option?

Joey Halzle (Tennessee OC) is another former UCF assistant; he spent two seasons under Heupel and followed him to the Vols.

The 38-year-old California native has had success as a quarterbacks coach, tutoring Hendon Hooker and Nico Iamaleava, among others.

Ryan Silverfield (Memphis) overcame a bumpy start to his tenure and is 20-5 over the past two seasons.

The former Mike Norvell assistant has Florida ties. The 44-year-old is from Jacksonville and spent two years with UCF as a graduate assistant. His offense has ranked in the top 25 in scoring in each of the past three years.

Barry Odom(UNLV) was in consideration the last time and had the Rebels in the Mountain West title game. But the former Missouri head coach has a defensive background, and UCF has a much stronger offensive identity.

Will Stein(Oregon OC) leads a top-20 offense for a national championship contender. He’s also the position coach for former UCF star Dillon Gabriel, a potential Heisman Trophy finalist.

A deep Playoff run could complicate the timing for the 35-year-old Kentucky native.

Charlie Weis Jr. (Ole Miss OC) is a future head coach, but is he ready for a Power 4 job at age 31? He has familiarity in the state with stints at South Florida and Florida Atlantic and briefly overlapped with Mohajir at Kansas (when Mohajir was an administrator and Weis Jr. was a manager on the football team coached by Weis Sr.).

JON SUMRALL (TULANE) will be one of the hottest coaching names on the carousel. In two seasons at Troy he won 23 games and led the Trojans to two straight Sun Belt titles.

At Tulane this season he led the Green Wave to the American Athletic Conference title game.

Sumrall is expected to be choosy if he decides to leave the Green Wave (he was once a defensive assistant there and wanted to return to New Orleans).

An opportunity to coach in a power conference with a team building to win might be hard to pass up.

In Conclusion: UCF is the fourth major program sitting in the center of one of the most talent-laden states in the country.

The Knights have a clear identity (modern, fast) to sell to recruits. They are new to the Power 4, and it’s fair to wonder if fans’ enormous expectations  (buoyed by the undefeated season/national title from 2017) are attainable immediately.

Regardless, there’s great potential for eventual success in a Big 12 that lacks heavyweight, championship bound programs.