After Virginia Tech began the 2025 season 0-3, including a 45-26 loss to Old Dominion where the Monarchs led 28-0 at halftime, Brent Pry was fired as the Hokies’ head coach.
The beginning of Pry’s tenure was promising. After going 3-8 in 2022, Pry and the Hokies improved and were 7-6 the following season with a 5-3 mark against ACC teams. They ended that campaign with a win in the Military Bowl.
The Hokies didn’t take another step up, however. They were 6-7 in 2024 with a loss in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Then this season started the way it did, which led to Pry being fired before the Hokies even got to conference play.
With him gone, Virginia Tech will be looking for a new head coach. Here are five potential candidates for the Hokies, and they are all currently head coaches in the Group of Five.
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Memphis Head Coach Ryan Silverfield
After the success Memphis enjoyed with Mike Norvell as the team’s head coach before he went to Florida State, Ryan Silverfield has kept the Tigers playing at a high level.
Since Silverfield became the head coach going into 2020, the Tigers haven’t suffered a losing season. They went 11-2 overall and 6-2 in AAC play in 2024, concluding the season with a win over West Virginia in the Frisco Bowl.
Silverfield is 45-20 in the FBS as a head coach, as Memphis is also 4-0 in bowl games since 2020.
Silverfield has coached at five Division I schools and with three NFL teams.
He began his coaching career at the high school level with his alma mater, The Bolles School, in 1999 as an assistant. He then went to another alma mater of his, Hampden-Sydney College, and worked with players on both sides of the ball.
He returned to the high school level to be Memorial Day’s head coach in Savannah, Georgia, before going to Jacksonville University to be a quarterbacks coach in 2005. He was a graduate assistant on offense and defense at UCF after that.
In 2008, he went to the pro level, becoming an offensive quality control staff member and defensive line staff assistant for the Minnesota Vikings. In 2011, he was a Vikings assistant offensive line coach.
In 2014, he went back to the collegiate ranks to become an offensive consultant at Toledo. He was a senior offensive analyst for Arizona State and assistant offensive line coach for the Detroit Lions in 2015.
He’s been at Memphis since 2016, where he’s been an offensive line coach, a run game coordinator, an assistant head coach, and a deputy head coach.
Southern Miss Head Coach Charles Huff
Huff only got to Southern Miss a few months ago. But maybe an opportunity like this would be too great to pass up.
Huff is 34-21 in the FBS as a head coach. That’s mostly from the past four years at Marshall.
The Thundering Herd went 9-3 during the 2024 regular season before defeating Louisiana in the Sun Belt title game. Huff also led Marshall to four consecutive bowl appearances.
Huff was a well-respected assistant coach and recruiter before taking over at Marshall.
During his career, he has mostly coached running backs. And within the past decade, he’s mentored some great ones like Saquon Barkley of Penn State and Najee Harris and Brian Robinson Jr. of Alabama.
Huff was an assistant head coach and running backs coach at Alabama from 2019-20. The year before, he was an assistant head coach, running backs coach, and run game coordinator at Mississippi State.
He was a running backs coach and special teams coordinator at Penn State from 2014-17. He also worked with RBs at Western Michigan in 2013, and he was an assistant running backs coach at the pro level for the Buffalo Bills in 2012.
He was an offensive quality control coach for Vanderbilt in 2011 after coaching offensive linemen for a year at Hampton, which is where he played and started 12 games at center as a senior.
He was an assistant O-line coach at Maryland in 2009. He began his coaching career at Tennessee State, first working with offensive linemen in 2006 and then becoming a tight ends coach and special teams coordinator from 2007-08.
JMU Head Coach Bob Chesney
Chesney had been considered for multiple other FBS openings, including Syracuse, before going to JMU. And Chesney has the type of head coaching experience Virginia Tech may want.
Chesney is 10-5 in the FBS as a head coach. He’s 121-51 as a head coach regardless of division. And going into this season, JMU was the favorite to win the Sun Belt.
Chesney was previously the head coach at Holy Cross from 2018-23. The Crusaders hadn’t endured a losing season since his first year there.
In fact, Holy Cross was in the FCS playoffs every year since 2019 before his last season. The Crusaders reached the second round of the playoffs in 2021 and got to the quarterfinals in 2022, finishing with a 12-1 overall record. Holy Cross was 7-4 in 2023.
Chesney was the Patriot League Coach of the Year three times, leading the program to five conference championships.
Before Holy Cross, he was a head coach at the Division II level at Assumption College and at the Division III level at Salve Regina University.
Liberty Head Coach Jamey Chadwell
Liberty’s first season in Conference USA, and the Flames’ first year with Jamey Chadwell as their head coach, went about as well as fans could’ve hoped.
Liberty went a perfect 12-0 during the regular season, won the CUSA Championship, and reached the Fiesta Bowl before losing to Oregon. The Flames weren’t as strong in 2024, going 8-4 overall, and they’ve started this year 1-2. But Chadwell could still end up being in the mix here.
Chadwell is 61-29 in the FBS as a head coach. He’s gone 22-7 at Liberty and was 39-22 in five years at Coastal Carolina.
Chadwell has been a head coach at multiple schools and has seen success at each of those stops.
Before going to Liberty, he was the head coach at Coastal Carolina from 2019-22. He was also an associate head coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks coach there in 2018 and was an interim head coach in 2017. He led the Chanticleers to a Sun Belt Championship in 2020.
He was also a head coach at Charleston Southern, where he went 35-14 and made the FCS playoffs twice and won Big South titles two times, from 2013-16. He was also the head coach at Delta State in 2012 and at North Greenville from 2009-11.
He rose to the ranks of head coach quickly. From 2000-03, he was an assistant at East Tennessee State, which is where he played, and worked with quarterbacks, running backs, and tight ends. He then became Charleston Southern’s OC from 2004-08 before getting his first head coaching job.
USF Head Coach Alex Golesh
Not only has Golesh led the Bulls to two bowl wins in his first two full seasons at USF, he’s helped the program earn two ranked wins this season. USF was up to No. 18 in the Associated Press Top 25 before losing to Miami.
Golesh’s first couple seasons as a collegiate head coach were an overall triumph. But he was successful as an assistant before that as well.
He was previously an offensive coordinator and tight ends coach at Tennessee from 2021-22. His last season there, the Volunteers were first in the country in scoring with 43.3 points per game.
He was a co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach at UCF in 2020. Before that, he was a tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at Iowa State from 2016-19.
That was after he spent four years at Illinois in a variety of roles, including running backs coach, tight ends coach, and recruiting coordinator. He’s also coached tight ends and was a recruiting coordinator at Toledo from 2009-11.
He began his coaching career at his alma mater, Ohio State, as a student assistant from 2004-05. He was also a graduate assistant at Northern Illinois (2006-07) and Oklahoma State (2008).
Golesh is 16-13 in the FBS as a head coach and 2-0 in bowl games.
