First reported by John Canzano, and now confirmed by additional outlets, Oregon State’s search committee has begun interviewing candidates to lead the Beavers’
In this coaching cycle, Chryst represents a return to tradition: his Pitt & Wisconsin teams aspired to the same reliance on determined, old-school, smashmouth football that defined Oregon State for decades. That philosophy had mixed-results in his prior stops. At Pitt, Chryst went 19-19 in three seasons, while at Wisconsin he went 67-26 with a pair of New Year’s Six bowl appearances in eight seasons. After a rocky 2-3 start to the 2022 season, the proud Wisconsin alum was given . Aside from a brief sabbatical at Texas through the duration of that season, he hasn’t coached since.
Shephard is a bit of a swiss army knife: he can recruit, call plays, coach drills, and more. To that point, the Crimson Tide ask him to wear several different hats: he’s their assistant head coach, a co-offensive coordinator, and the wide receivers’ coach. He’s also only 42 years old, and might feel ready for a climb up the coaching ladder.
FCS experience defines his coaching career: after four years playing tight end at his alma mater North Dakota State, he transitioned to a coaching career in Fargo. Vigen coached tight ends in 2001, quarterbacks in 2002, running backs in 2003, then became the pass game coordinator in 2004, and the offensive coordinator in 2009. After winning three consecutive FCS national championships, Vigen joined his mentor Craig Bohl at Wyoming. Together, they worked with 2016 2nd overall pick Carson Wentz and 2018 7th overall pick Josh Allen.
In 2021, Vigen took his first head coaching job with Montana State. He’s won a pair of Big Sky conference championships, and gone 56-12 in five seasons. This year’s Montana State squad is 9-2 overall, 7-0 in the Big Sky, heading into a de-facto conference championship game against arch rivals Montana on Saturday. It’s been that he was a leading candidate at Washington State last offseason, before contract negotiations fell apart.
Over the past three seasons in Eugene, Stein has engineered successful passing offenses with three different quarterbacks (Bo Nix, Dillon Gabriel, and Dante Moore), and worked with many moving pieces at other skill positions thanks to the transfer portal. His youth & inexperience might keep him from earning a head coaching job, but the Beavers could do a lot worse than a promising young coordinator from an elite program down Highway 99.
The 44-year-old is one of the sport’s best recruiters, plus he has a deep network of potential assistant coaches thanks to a three year stint in the NFL. Whether he seriously considers the Oregon State opening, or uses smoke surrounding the Beavers’ job as leverage for other interviews in this cycle, remains to be seen.
