Matt Jones, a sports talk host at Kentucky Sports Radio tweeted Friday afternoon that a “VERY good LSU source” told him that LSU’s top three is, from 1-3.
Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M head coach
O’Brien, Alabama’s offensive coordinator who is best known for head coaching stints with Penn State and the Houston Texans and
Mark Stoops, Kentucky head coach
All three candidates currently work in the SEC. Should O’Brien move to Baton Rouge— which, right now, is little more than a hypothetical— it would be his second college football head coaching gig. His first stop was at Penn State, where he was the Nittany Lions’ first full-time head coach in more than four decades after Joe Paterno’s firing in November of 2011.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Faced with a program in shambles due to scandal and subsequent NCAA sanctions, O’Brien kept the Nittany Lions afloat, going 15-9 in two seasons and recruiting players such as receivers Chris Godwin and DeShaun Hamilton that would play big roles on Penn State’s 2016 Big Ten championship team under James Franklin.
After Penn State, O’Brien moved to the NFL where he coached the Houston Texans to four division titles between 2014-2019 before his dismissal in middle of the 2020 season. Toward the end of his time in Houston, O’Brien, also the team’s general manager, received heavy criticism for trading DeAndre Hopkins and a public spat with JJ Watt.
Now, O’Brien is back in college as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator at Alabama. Saban’s previous three offensive coordinators; Steve Sarkisian (Texas) Mike Locksley (Maryland) and Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss) all landed power five head coaching jobs after Alabama.
