Inside Carolina sat down with new UNC AD Bubba Cunningham to discuss the state of the search for a permanent football coach. There wasn't much revealed here other than the general timetable for making the final hire.
Cunningham officially replaced Dick Baddour as the school’s athletic director on Nov. 14. The former Tulsa A.D. sat down with Inside Carolina on Tuesday to discuss the football coaching search.
"We’ll start to interview candidates after the end of the season," Cunningham said. "Everett is a candidate. We’ll interview Everett with some others between the end of the season and probably the bowl game, and then name a coach at some point in that period, whether it’s Everett or somebody else."
Cunningham has hired Bill Carr & Associates as a search consultant to aid in the process. Carr’s group also served as the search firm for UNC’s athletic director search committee appointed by Chancellor Holden Thorp.
After several weeks of research and conversations with Carr and as a staff, Cunningham indicated that UNC is now in the phase of finding out more information about potential candidates before ultimately conducting the interviews.
UNC posted its job opening for the head football coach position on Nov. 17 with an "open until filled" designation listed for the closing date.
Here is a link to the job opening on UNC's website in case any of you want to apply.
Bubba is employing the use of a search firm using the same one which aided the AD search committee. However it is clear that the search firm exists primarily to research candidates and provide Bubba with the most information possible. By all accounts Bubba will handle the full process and hopes to have a new coach named before UNC plays in its bowl game which would happen right after Christmas. This weekend is the end of the regular season and next weekend is when conference championship games get played. With that in mind we are looking at roughly a 3-4 week window to make the hire. That timetable also means hiring a coach without knowing the full brunt of the NCAA penalties since they are not expected January at the earliest.
Interim head coach Everett Withers is being called a "candidate" by Bubba which is true but best guess is he is 5-6 names down the list.
In other news, UNC has agreed to a home-and-home series with Ohio St. with the first game being played in Columbus during the 2015 season and the return date in Chapel Hill set for 2017. UNC also rounded out the 2012 season schedule by adding a home data versus Idaho. UNC's 2012 non-conference slate will include homes games versus ECU, Idaho and Elon with a trip to Louisville. In ACC play, UNC will take on Wake Forest, Maryland and NC State plus the regular Coastal Division foes. Looking at the 2012 schedule right now, it is not overly difficult and will be a good place for a new coach to start out.