West Virginia is struggling to hire its next head coach and Furman’s current head coach makes a lot of sense to replace Bob Huggins. Â
MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — The West Virginia head coach search is going…well, not great. John Beilein didn’t work out. Jerrod Calhoun is too inexperienced for the job. Andy Kennedy and the university had mutual interest, but talks fizzled out.
With that said, Wren Baker would be wise to look at young, talented successful head coaches from around the country. One such head coach that would absolutely consider leaving his current position to become the next head coach of the Mountaineers is Bob Richey, the current head coach at Furman.
Richey, 40, has been the head coach at Furman for six seasons, accumulating an impressive 139-54 overall record. In addition, Richey led Furman to a Southern Conference regular season championship and conference championship, as well as an NCAA Tournament bid last season.
Richey is one of the hottest young names in college basketball coaching and would jump at an opportunity like this. Although he signed a contract extension and got a raise following this past season, he only makes $280,000 a year. West Virginia could easily quadruple his salary while saving a lot of money from Bob Huggins’ over $4 million salary last season.
West Virginia will likely need to go through a search for a new football coach and pay for Neal Brown’s buyout this year. Wren Baker should consider looking to the future, allowing a young coach like Bob Richey to build the basketball program and unfortunately scrap the upcoming basketball season.
