Hiring one of your own can be a double-edged sword. When it goes well, it adds to your legacy and you become a legend. Look no further than Kirby Smart at Georgia. Conversely, you can erode at the very fabric of the program you once starred for. Look no futher than Scott Frost coming back to Nebraska. Unfortunately, we experienced the latter with Andy Avalos at his alma mater of Boise State.
Avalos came back to Boise after having been Mario Cristobal's defensive coordinator at Oregon previously. He played for the Broncos from 2001 to 2004. While he originally returned to his alma mater in 2012 to be Chris Petersen's linebackers coach, later becoming Bryan Harsin's defensive coordinator in 2016 before heading to Oregon in 2019, Avalos' third stint in Boise did not go well at all.
Boise State decided to move on from him midway through his third season on the job. The Broncos were 5-5 on the season, but 4-2 in Mountain West play. They won 10 games a season ago after floundering at a 7-5 mark in his first season on the job in 2021. Simply, being middle of the pack in the Mountain West is not good enough for one of the original BCS busters. Something had to change...
So with Avalos out at Boise State, here are a few candidates to potentially replace him next season.
Andy Avalos fired: 3 replacements for former Boise State head coach
3. Kellen Moore is a Boise State legend, but he is coaching in the NFL...
When Bryan Harsin left Boise State for Auburn ahead of the 2021 college football season, everybody and their brother thought Broncos legendary quarterback Kellen Moore would be coming back home to Boise. He was the Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator then. After parting ways with Dallas after a second-straight playoff catastrophe, Moore finds himself employed by the Los Angeles Chargers.
Although Moore's coaching stock has taken a hit after what was Ezekiel Elliott's final play in a Cowboys uniform, there is still a chance he could be promoted from within if Bolts head coach Brandon Staley fails. Staley probably will, but even if Moore was a great internal candidate, there are no guarantees Dean Spanos will want to pay him the big bucks to be the next face of the Chargers.
Because he has made it a point to be an NFL coach over a college one, I think it would have to take the right situation and circumstance for Moore to leave his current level of football. However, we did see Jim Harbaugh leave the San Francisco 49ers to return to his alma mater of Michigan not all that long ago. Moore could be the sexy hire for Boise State, but I have a hard time of seeing this happen.
Moore could at the very least kick the tires and see if he wants to come back to the college game.
2. Bryan Harsin needs a job, and he did have great success at Boise before
Who says you can't go home? After the unmitigated disaster that was his year-and-a-half run at Auburn, Bryan Harsin is in need of a job. He sat out the 2023 season to let some of that stink get off him. Not every program with an opening will want to hire him after how the Auburn ride crashed. Then again, he was the last coach at Boise State who had Boise State playing like Boise State should play.
Like Avalos after him, Harsin too is a Boise State alum. Just like Kellen Moore, Harsin was a former Broncos quarterback, albeit not on the College Football Hall of Fame level of Moore. After getting his first shot at being a college head coach at Arkansas State, Harsin took over for Chris Petersen in 2014. The Broncos went 69-19 overall under him, 45-8 in Mountain West play and 3-2 in bowl games.
Even if Harsin went an atrocious 9-12 (4-9) in parts of two seasons at Auburn, he won double-digit games five times in seven years at Boise. Outside of the COVID year where Boise State still went 5-2, he only had one season without getting to at least 10 victories on the year. That would be the 9-4 campaign of 2015 where they went 5-3 in conference play. They won the Group of Five the year prior.
Reaching into one's past is not always a good answer, but it might be a better one for ole Boise State.
1. Jeff Choate may be the perfection solution for Boise from Texas
If Boise State is looking for something different, may I suggest looking at Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator Jeff Choate? While he has been on Steve Sarkisian's staff the last three seasons, Choate left a pretty good FCS head-coaching job at Montana State to come to Austin. Although his 28-22 (18-14) record in Bozeman is not all that impressive, he got better every season he led the Bobcats.
Given that Choate grew up in Idaho and played his college ball at Western Montana, you would think he would know the unique region in which Boise State plays to rebuild a Group of Five power there. Being a huge part of what Sarkisian has done to turn around Texas could be implemented to a Boise State program that has lost its way. If the Broncos want to look outside, Choate might be their guy.
I believe that Choate left Montana State to raise his national profile. He is a head coach, but needed a slight detour to get more gravitas in the coaching ranks. While there is an outside shot that Choate could go Power Five right away in a few years, he could take a top-tier Group of Five job like the one at Boise State and get back to winning very quickly. The more you think about it, the more you will love it.
If the Broncos go with a hire outside of the family, you have to believe Choate is a strong candidate.
