As Power Four head coaching opportunities have opened, that’s created a domino effect for the Group of Five.
For example, Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield went to Arkansas, which fired its head coach, and now Southern Miss head coach Charles Huff is at the helm for Memphis.
Here’s a look at recent coaching movement:
Washington State Hires Missouri OC Kirby Moore
Washington State needed to make yet another head coaching hire after losing another leader of its program to the Power Four.
From Mizzou to Wazzu, the Cougars are reportedly hiring Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore to be their next head coach.
This is after Jimmy Rogers went to Iowa State. He was at Wazzu for one season after replacing Jake Dickert, who went to Wake Forest.
This season, Missouri is 27th in the FBS in total offense with 429.3 yards per game and 32nd in scoring offense with 32.2 points per game. He’s also been the Tigers’ quarterbacks coach and during his tenure worked with Beau Pribula and Brady Cook, who’s second all-time at Missouri with 26 wins as Mizzou’s starter.
Moore has been Missouri’s OC and QBs coach since 2023, but he’s from Prosser, Washington, and has coached in the state of Washington before. He was a graduate assistant at UW from 2015-16.
He was also an offensive coordinator and QBs coach (2022), wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator (2020-21), and WRs coach (2017-19) at Fresno State. He began his collegiate coaching career at the College of Idaho working with wide receivers in 2014.
Kirby Moore was a starting wide receiver at Boise State, where he played with his older brother, Kellen Moore, the Heisman Trophy finalist who is now the head coach for the New Orleans Saints.
Memphis Hires Southern Miss Head Coach Charles Huff
Charles Huff has been a head coach for multiple FBS schools now. And he’s won plenty of games during that time.
After just one year at Southern Miss, Huff decided to go to Memphis to be its next head coach.
He’s following some successful coaches. Ryan Silverfield is now at Arkansas after going 50-24 there, Mike Norvell went 38-16 there before going to Florida State, and Justin Fuente helped turn the program around and went 19-6 during his final two seasons there before going to Virginia Tech.
Huff is 39-25 in the FBS as a head coach. That’s mostly his 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.
Southern Miss Hires Blake Anderson To Be Its Next Head Coach
For the second time in about a year, Southern Miss has hired a new head coach.
Charles Huff was hired as Southern Miss’ coach after the 2024 season and brought many of his players with him from Marshall, where he won the Sun Belt Championship a season ago. But now Huff has gone to Memphis to lead the Tigers.
Which left USM looking for a new head coach. Huff turned the program around in a short amount of time, as the Golden Eagles went from 1-11 in 2024 to 7-5 this season – and they were a win over Troy away from appearing in the conference title game.
With that success, USM decided to hire a head coach that provided some continuity and had familiarity with the program by hiring Blake Anderson.
Anderson was USM’s offensive coordinator this past year after spending 2021-23 at Utah State. He went 23-17 during his time there with three bowl appearances and a Mountain West Championship in 2021.
Anderson was fired by USU, however. According to a statement from Utah State, Anderson was fired after a “thorough external review of alleged noncompliance with university policies that implement Title IX, which require full and timely reporting of disclosures of sexual misconduct — including domestic violence — and prohibit employees from investigating disclosures of sexual misconduct themselves.”
Anderson went to USM as an assistant after that and is a head coach once again.
This won’t be the first time Anderson’s been a head coach in the Sun Belt. He went 51-37 at Arkansas State. He led the Red Wolves to two Sun Belt Championships in 2015 and 2016.
This also wasn’t the first time he’s coached at Southern Miss, as he was an OC there from 2010-11, was a quarterbacks coach from 2008-11, and was a run game coordinator there from 2008-09.
After his playing career, first as a quarterback and wide receiver at Baylor and then as a wideout at Sam Houston, Anderson began his collegiate coaching career at Eastern New Mexico. He was a graduate assistant there in 1992 and then coached wide receivers in 1993 before moving on to coach wideouts at Howard Payne in 1994. After that, he was a recruiting coordinator who coached quarterbacks, wide receivers, and defensive backs at Trinity Valley Community College from 1995-97 and was the team’s offensive coordinator in 1998.
He’s been an OC at Louisiana (2007) and North Carolina (2012-13) and a co-offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee (2002-04). He also coached wide receivers at New Mexico in 2001 – where he also coached running backs from 1999-2000 – and Middle Tennessee. He mentored QBs at Louisiana in 2007 and at North Carolina from 2012-13.
Toledo Hires Mercer Head Coach Mike Jacobs
After Jason Candle left Toledo to go to UConn, the Rockets were looking for a head coach to help keep them competitive in the MAC. They believe they’ve done that.
Toledo has hired Mike Jacobs to be its next head coach. Jacobs is 94-23 as a head coach, which is the fourth-best winning percentage among active coaches in Divisions I and II.
Jacobs led Mercer to a 20-6 record with two FCS playoff appearances. He was the SoCon Coach of the Year the past two seasons.
“My family and I are humbled and honored to lead the University of Toledo’s storied football program,” Jacobs said in a press release. “We are looking forward to being a part of Team Toledo and helping this program achieve new heights.”
Jacobs went 32-9 as the head coach at Division II Lenoir-Rhyne from 2020-23. He also went 42-8 from 2016-19 at Division II Notre Dame College, where he was a defensive coordinator (2015) and defensive line coach (2014). He also was a defensive line coach at California (Pennsylvania) from 2008-13, a grad assistant at Purdue from 2005-07, an offensive line coach at Wilmington in 2004, and a grad assistant at Eastern Michigan from 2002-03. He played at Ohio State as an offensive lineman from 1997-2000.
Coastal Carolina Hires Missouri State Head Coach Ryan Beard
Ryan Beard has been recognized as one of the up-and-coming head coaches in the FBS. And now he’s on the move.
Beard, who led Missouri State during its first season as an FBS program to a bowl game berth, will be Coastal Carolina’s next head coach.
In their inaugural season in the FBS, the Bears are 7-5 and will be playing Arkansas State in the XBox Bowl on Dec. 18.
Beard was the youngest person to become Missouri State’s head coach when he was promoted at 34 years old in December 2022.
Previously, Beard was Missouri State’s defensive coordinator for three seasons. During that span, he coached a defense that earned 18 all-conference nods and four All-American accolades while three players from that time had opportunities to play professionally. Missouri State was among the best in the country in several statistical categories on defense when Beard was the DC.
Before going to Missouri State, Beard was a special teams and safeties coach at Central Michigan in 2019. He was a quality control coach at Louisville, where he was from 2017-18, before becoming the team’s linebackers coach and co-special teams coordinator. He was also a defensive quality control coach there from 2014-15.
He coached defensive backs in 2016 at Western Kentucky, where he was a two-time All-Sun Belt defensive back himself, and was a graduate assistant at WKU in 2012-13.
