Every year when a decent head coaching job comes open Bud Foster's name gets bandied about on Virginia Tech message boards. Earlier this year I even speculated that Louisville would be a good fit for Foster when they decide to give Kragthorpe the ax. But the Louisville jobs and the ones before it all fit into Foster's criteria: A BCS school with a history of success he could thrive at.
My thought was always that Foster wasn't going to get his shot at a head coaching job until he changed his criteria for a job worth leaving Virginia Tech for. Brace yourselves, because it's happened. According to Mark Viera's blog post over at the Washington Post, Foster is interested in the Memphis head coaching job:
Asked what would be attractive about the program, Foster said: "It's a Conference USA job. You look at teams like Cincinnati, you look at teams like Pittsburgh, you look at teams like Louisville - those three have recently had success that are in urban kind of settings. Memphis is in that same kind of setting and in a pretty decent area from a recruiting standpoint, when you start looking at the athletes they have in that area."
Let the meltdown begin.
Foster's interest in a CUSA job will definitely get the attention of Tech fans who have long feared that Foster would leave and chaos would ensue. Memphis doesn't even come close to what Foster has said he wants in a football program. It's never been better than mediocre and the Tigers have been to seven bowls in their history, five since 2003.
If Foster's interested in Memphis, it means he's going to be interested in a lot more jobs that are destined to come open this offseason. I think Bud has finally realized that he's not going to go directly from being a defensive coordinator to being the head coach at a top tier program. He's going to have to cut his teeth somewhere like Memphis if he wants his opportunity.
Is this the year Bud leaves Virginia Tech? You tell me.