North Carolina Tar Heels: Would Baylor Approach Fedora?
The Baylor Bears need a new football coach and may come to the conclusion that North Carolina Tar Heels coach Larry Fedora is the right man for the job.
The North Carolina Tar Heels might have a scandal problem on their hands. No, I am not referring to the improper benefits scandal of 2010 or the academic scandal that the NCAA has limited their focus on. No the new threat to the North Carolina Tar Heels is a sexual assault scandal a thousand miles away.
That’s right, the Baylor Bears have upstaged the Heels in the scandal talk for right now. However the most important after effect of the scandal is the termination of head coach Art Briles. Briles leaves the Baylor program in his highest form. There has never been the level of talent there that there is right now.
They need a new coach and the team has proven to be a high level enough to be in playoff consideration and go to big bowl games. They are based on a spread offensive system not too foreign from the offense that Larry Fedora runs in Chapel Hill. They also used big Texas linemen to run over the Heels in the Russell Athletic Bowl.
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They are also in Texas, which is Fedora’s home state. They would be silly not to make some run at Fedora since he has experience weathering probationary periods and building teams. Baylor will have some kind of probationary period, either self-imposed or leveled by the NCAA.
What kind of punishment it may be is not known. While a sexual assault scandal is a nasty thing to have, the NCAA is still reeling from how it handled the Jerry Sandusky issue at Penn State. They may not have the stomach to get involved on too deep a level. They may target individuals instead of the program. Briles could be hit with a show cause penalty while certain Baylor administrators may receive sanction.
That might allow the Baylor football program to survive with minimal punishment and thus maintain its status as a good team ready to compete now assuming a purge of the football roster does not get rid of everybody.
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The thing that would prevent Fedora from leaving is twofold. First there is the been there done that element. Fedora may have no interest in managing another transition during probation and possible scholarship loss.
The second thing is that the current Carolina roster is almost what he has been building for. He has a number of offensive weapons, his quarterback recruit under center, and the only thing he is missing is another couple of years of good defensive recruiting from the staff overhaul last year. Ask Wichita State basketball coach Gregg Marshall about how easy it is to leave a well developed team to take another job.
A third element would be that Fedora and his family have been in the same place now for five years and it might be hard on them to move. Particularly a move into uncertainty.
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Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the NCAA will hammer Baylor (it’s not Texas, and SMU knows what it is like to not be Texas) and render the job undesirable to any but an up-and-comer looking for a break into a BCS gig.