VanGorder Retires from "College" Football

 The picture became a little clearer.  VanGorder is going to be a defensive coordinator in high school.  And is retired from "college" football.

He is going to Gulf Shores, AL.  The new head coach there is Mark Hudspeth, whose name you might know from head coaching jobs at Louisiana, North Alabama and Austin Peay.  He left the Governors in 2019 (to spend more time with his familyl and seems to have actually meant it) and coached youth football in 2019 in Gulf Shores and then moved up to Coach the high school team.

This story on AL.com has more about VanGorder heading down there.  Based on this, VanGorder reached out to Hudspeth through an intermediary.

“We had not coached together, but we had a mutual acquaintance and that person let me know that Brian might be interested in talking to us,” Hudspeth said. “Obviously, when I found out he might be interested, we connected and had a lot of great conversations and the same goals.

Obviously.

Thinking about what was going on when VanGorder left, this quote from Hudspeth is also interesting.

"At this level, you are not dealing with a lot of the things you are dealing with in college football right now with opt outs and transfers and things like that.”

Things like that.

It's a critical hire for Loeffler.  He's got to make a good hire.  It won't be easy, given what's going on at BG, but he's been given a bit of a mulligan and if he can find the right person he can start to re-write the story.  If he just promotes Steve Morrison, then it's a different look.

Oh last note:  BG's last 2 defensive coordinators are now coaching HS ball.