General

Bud Foster Wants A Job, Any Job

Nov 13, 2009, 9:42 PM UTC

â†µâ†µBud Foster’s presence on the sideline at Virginia Tech has gottenâ†µprogressively more inexplicable every year he turns in a top 10â†µdefense, as he’s done each of the past five years. Foster and puntâ†µblocks are the whole program at Virginia Tech, after all, and Tech hasâ†µascended to the top of an admittedly short mountain in the ACC. â†µ

â†µâ†µIt’s a persistent mystery that no one’s willing to take a chance onâ†µhim. Imagine Bud Foster freed of the Bryan Stinespring shackles, free toâ†µchose an offensive coordinator with verve and moxie and the ability toâ†µrecruit a quarterback capable of completing more than half of hisâ†µpasses. Sounds pretty good. Someone should totally try that, yet no one has.â†µ

â†µâ†µAnd it’s not like Foster’s not trying to find himself a head job: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Foster interviewed at Clemson and Virginia when those jobs were lastâ†µâ‡¥open. He has said that he tried unsuccessfully to get the jobs at Northâ†µâ‡¥Carolina State and Illinois when Tom O’Brien and Ron Zook landed thoseâ†µâ‡¥jobs.â†µâ†µâ†µAl Groh was an NFL head coach and an alum, so that hire makes sense onâ†µthe surface. Tom O’Brien was a successful coach at a peer institution.â†µBut someone gave a who-dat wide receivers coach named “Dabo”â†µthe Clemson job over Bud Foster. This explains much about the state ofâ†µClemson football over the past 20 years. And Ron Zook. Ronâ†µZook. That is all. Ron Zook. â†µ

â†µ

â†µStymied in his attempts to get a job in the BCS, Foster is stoopingâ†µlower. In the aftermath of the season's first firing, Foster has takenâ†µthe unusual step of talking about the job opening at Memphisâ†µdirectly:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“That might be a job I might be interested in,” Foster saidâ†µâ‡¥Tuesday night when asked for his take on the opening, adding later, “I think there’s a lot of things that are attractive aboutâ†µâ‡¥it.”â†µâ†µâ†µMemphis, for its part, is looking at luminaries like Terry Bowden, though the Memphisâ†µCommercial-Appeal’s list of hot coordinators does contain a number ofâ†µlogical choices like Florida DC Charlie Strong -- another defensiveâ†µcoordinator fated to be the subject of “why won’t anyone hire thisâ†µguy?” stories -- Oklahoma State co-OC Gunter Brewer and itinerantâ†µAuburn offense resurrection genius Gus Malzahn. They have not contactedâ†µBud Foster. â†µ

â†µâ†µWell, no more, Memphis: In Soviet Russia, Bud Foster contacts you.â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: