Texas Football: Tom Herman tabbed as ‘realistic’ candidate for USC HC job

Former Texas football head coach Tom Herman hasn’t found himself in the midst of headlines as often this fall as he was last year. The former Texas and Houston Cougars head coach was let go by the Longhorns back in January, as he was subsequently replaced by the former Alabama Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian specifically back on Jan. 2.

Now with head coach Matt Nagy and the Chicago Bears as an offensive analyst/special projects coach, the former Longhorns bench boss Herman is in a role that is in a much dimmer spotlight. Although, it was not all that long ago that Herman sat on one of the hottest seats in the entire country.

Last fall, Herman couldn’t really get away from the hot seat talk. That was especially true after Herman and the Longhorns got off to a 2-2 start following a tough overtime loss at the hands of the rival Oklahoma Sooners and head coach Lincoln Riley.

And while there shouldn’t be much talk among big-time Power Five schools about hiring Herman away to be their next head coach at some point next offseason, there was one voice around the college football media landscape that pitched this idea of late.

Texas football ex-head coach Tom Herman tabbed as option for USC… jokingly?

Jason McIntyre of Fox Sports and the “Straight Fire Podcast” mentioned recently that he believes Herman is a “realistic” option for the USC Trojans head coaching job. McIntyre tabbed Herman (hopefully jokingly) Herman in this post about filling the USC job opening in the post-Clay Helton era in a post that also stated that Urban Meyer to the Trojans is “silly”.

The more realistic candidates mentioned here should be the Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin and UCF Knights head coach Gus Malzahn with this USC job opening. Those are definitely much more capable head coaches than Helton.

And while you could argue that Herman would be a much better head coach for the Trojans than Helton, there are still more qualified candidates out there.

There aren’t really any former Texas head coaches that are great candidates for USC. Herman might actually be the best of the bunch. But it will take a long time before he’s ready for a role like that.

USC fans would also hate the idea of a Herman hire with how poor Tom’s former defensive coordinator, Todd Orlando, has done out of the gates in the same role with the Trojans this fall. It’s hard to imagine any sort of scenario where this plays out unless some Herman project with the Bears takes off this season. And that’s not likely.

Herman finished up with a record of 32-18 over the course of his four years as Texas head coach. He also held a record of 22-4 during his two seasons as the Houston head coach, along with a solid 5-1 career record in the postseason (4-0 in the postseason with Texas).