Will Memphis Coach Justin Fuente Bolt for a New Job This Offseason?

During the preseason, Memphis football’s marketing department released billboards with its 2014 slogan: Wait ‘Til This Year. Naturally, like any college football coach would do, Justin Fuente attempted to downplay expectations. But coaches, generally speaking, want to sign off on things of that nature, and especially slogans that will plastered all over a city that has lacked a competitive college football team since the latter years of the Tommy West tenure.

Well, it appears Fuente and the marketing department knew exactly what they were doing.

After a thrilling 16-13 win against the Temple Owls that saw sophomore kicker Jake Elliott—who struggled early on this season after a stellar freshman campaign—kick the game-winning field goal as time expired, the Tigers now find themselves bowl eligible for the first time since 2008.

There is a major issue that a program like Memphis faces when it achieves success: its coach instantly becomes a hot name among potential coaching vacancies. It is only magnified when that coach has an excellent track record as an assistant and has taken over a program that, upon arrival, had one of the worst rosters in college football and turned it into a bowl team and conference title contender in just three seasons.

For the Tigers, they are stuck in the unenviable limbo of if they are bad, they fire their coach and try again, and if they are good, their coach will, in most cases, be scooped up by a bigger program.

This brings us to the current situation of the Memphis football program.

Athletic director Tom Bowen is known for being a football-first type of guy. It seemed strange to have a “basketball school” like Memphis bring in a football guy to run its athletic department, but Bowen has invested both funds and resources into the football program, and the results are beginning to show.

With new facilities and a strong backing in the athletic department, Fuente has far exceeded what seemed feasible or realistic in just three years time. Now with a resume, what is the next move for the Memphis head coach?

It is difficult to predict, honestly. It seems as though some of what the future holds for Fuente and Memphis hangs in the balance on what happens the remainder of this season. At 6-3 (4-1 AAC), the Tigers still have three (incredibly winnable) games remaining on their schedule. If they were to win out, it would be difficult to imagine Fuente not at least entertaining offers from bigger schools.

However, were the Tigers to lose one or even two of those games, it may cool some of the hot-coaching-candidate talk. Even so, one would have to think that teams have seen enough of a sample size to come to the conclusion that Fuente has done virtually the impossible in a very short amount of time.

Let’s, for a minute, assume Fuente decides that he will indeed leave Memphis in the off-season for a bigger job. Could you blame him? Think about where this program was when Larry Porter was fired—a complete and total dumpster fire, to put it lightly, and a job no one wanted. Fast forward to now; there is a glut of young, talented players, and Memphis has begun to garner national respect which will only help it on the recruiting trail both this season and in the future.

Seasons like this do not happen all of the time at Memphis. Coach Fuente has come in and brought the program back to where it was during the Tommy West-DeAngelo Williams days—atop the conference standings and in a bowl game. Can you really hold it against a guy who is trying to advance his career upwardly?

In life, people do this all the time but usually with far less media publicity; except if Fuente were to leave, he would be leaving the program as a much more desirable job for other potential coaching candidates.

Guys like Fuente who are seemingly good coaches and great people deserve every opportunity in their profession. If he decides to stay beyond this season, then, great, but it will only be delaying the inevitable.

Tiger fans must not lose sight of how much Justin Fuente has done for this program and this city. Here’s to hoping he stays for two more decades, but here’s to a man who has brought relevancy back to the program.