Oregon State Football: Beavers to hire Beau Baldwin as next head coach

Oregon State football is poised to become the first Power 5 program to fill their head coaching vacancy, hiring Cal offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin as their next head coach.

Oregon State has found their guy. A month removed from former head coach Gary Andersons‘ mutual decision with the university to part ways the Beavers have found his replacement. Footballscoop.com has reported that Cal offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin will be the next coach at Oregon State.

The former head coach at Eastern Washington, Baldwin has ties to the Pacific Northwest and has already found success in that are. Baldwin was the head coach of the EWU team that upset Mike Leach and Washington State at the beginning of the 2016 season. He’ll get the opportunity to square off with Leach and the Cougars once again, but this time as conference foes.

Baldwin is in the midst of his first full season as the offensive coordinator at Cal. The Bears have their final game of the season on Friday night against UCLA. Oregon State caps off their season on Saturday against Oregon. It’s expected that Baldwin will be formally announced at some point following that game.

Oregon State is not seen as one of the preeminent coaching jobs in college football. As such they weren’t going to get a big name like Chip Kelly. Baldwin might not have any experience as a head coach at the FBS level, but a 85-32 record in nine seasons at Eastern Washington, including six trips to the FCS playoffs and a national championship in 2010 is a solid place to start.

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Oregon State struck first. It will be interesting to see which coaching jobs are filled in the coming weeks. Notable current openings include UCLA, Florida and Tennessee.