College Football: Top 6 Group of Five coaches facing 2017 hot seat
By Zach Bigalke
Life at UMass hasn’t been nearly as easy for Mark Whipple his second time around. In his first stint as head coach of the Minutemen, Whipple went 49-26 and won the I-AA national championship in 1998. His teams won Atlantic-10 championships in 1999 and 2003. Then he left to take the job as the quarterbacks coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, helping to mentor a young Ben Roethlisberger.
After bouncing around the NFL, Whipple returned to Massachusetts in 2014. He took over a program that had regressed after moving up to the FBS ranks. Charley Molnar had gone 2-22 in the program’s first two seasons at the highest level. Whipple has fared little better after his return, going 8-28 in three seasons at the FBS level. The Minutemen were ostracized from the MAC as a result, and enter their second year of independence in 2017.
Whipple cannot be blamed for the program’s decision to move up to the FBS. He cannot be blamed for the MAC’s decision to oust the Minutemen, either. The situation is bleak, but if anyone can help pull UMass out of the morass it is the man who brought them to the pinnacle at the I-AA level. Putting Whipple on the hot seat now seems premature.