By LARRY VAUGHT
Despite Florida State’s recent woes, ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit still believes it is a “heavyweight” job.
Herbstreit, who grew up in Florida, believes college football is better when Florida State is relevant.
“I think it’s a great job, I think it’s a little tricky as far as it’s not — you know you coach at some of these places and no matter what the product is on the field the stadium’s sold out, everybody’s there, there’s a buzz in the air that kind of thing,” Herbstreit said. “I don’t know if that’s necessarily like that right now, but I think if you can bring in a dynamic head coach to get people excited, get the players excited, I think there’s a chance that it can get back to what it needs to be.”
Herbstreit has seen a lot of names of potential candidates thrown around since Florida State fired coach Willie Taggart. He believes the Seminoles need to “go after an established coach” to revive the program.
“I don’t know if taking a hot coordinator would be the right move. I think after everything they have been through for the last few years I think they need to find somebody that’s familiar with the state as far as recruiting, somebody that’s familiar with that school and some of the ways that school works and operates,” the ESPN analyst said.
It looked like initially that “somebody” might be Bob Stoops, the former Oklahoma coach who won a national championship. However, despite the speculation Stoops has said he’s not been offered the job.
So who does Herbstreit thinks is the right choice?
“I think that the most obvious name to come to the top of my head is Mark Stoops, because he left there as a defensive coordinator, did a really good job for Jimbo Fisher, coached some very high profile players, their defense was good enough for him to eventually get the head job at UK,” Herbstreit said.
“He’s been there now for whatever it is, six or seven years, and has done a pretty good job obviously there. Won 10 games last year, which is tough to do in the SEC when you’re in Lexington.
“And so I think he would be an obvious candidate, but there are a lot of other guys that I’m sure will be candidates.”
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