Louisville football: Vince Tyra has “mystery” candidate according to report

Louisville football is closing in on making a hire for their head coaching vacancy. A new report indicates it’s down to Scott Satterfield and a “mystery candidate.”

No news is typically good news, but for the case of the Louisville football head coaching vacancy, Louisville fans are beginning to become a bit worried by the lack of news coming out of the Athletic Department.

We all know that Vince Tyra was turned down by former Cardinal and now Purdue head coach, Jeff Brohm, last week after the two had some discussion about the opening.

Vince Tyra quickly moved on to what he believed was a great pool of candidates, with Appalachian State Head Coach, Scott Satterfield, at the top of the list. We know that Tyra reached out to Satterfield leading up to the Sun Belt Conference Championship game in which Satterfield told the media:

"“I think I owe it to myself and my family to take a look.  And I’ve always said I’ll listen. I’ll listen to see what people have to say. And if there is interest on their part, we’ll see where it’s at. If it’s going to benefit our family and is a situation we feel like we can have success, then that’s something we’ll take serious. And if not, we’ll move on and continue to build a powerhouse here at Appalachian State.”"

After the Appalchian State victory, reports indicated that Vince Tyra was set to meet with the head coach over the coming days, but no timeline was given on when a decision could be made. In fact up until this morning, we heard nothing.

Footballscoop,com, an outlet known for breaking news (having the “scoop” some might say) in the college football world, published a story that updated the Louisville coaching timeline for us.

"Sources tell FootballScoop Tyra had a strong interest in getting to know App State head coach Scott Satterfield. Satt’s squad had a conference championship game coming Saturday, so the meeting was scheduled for after. App State took care of business vs Louisiana Lafayette, adding another Sun Belt title to the trophy case in Boone. Thereafter, sources tell FootballScoop Satterfield did meet with Louisville officials.However, over the past few days, agents have been registering their clients’ interest with Tyra and some have impressed. Sources tell FootballScoop, Tyra has a meeting today with another candidate who he feels also checks all the right boxes to become the next head coach at Louisville should he get the right feel from him individually. A source familiar with Tyra’s thinking tells FootballScoop, “Vince believes he will have his next head coach later today.”"

Speculation quickly began to run rampant across Twitter as Louisville fans tried to figure out who the mystery candidate was. Was it Mel Tucker deciding to spur Colorado at the last second to stay closer to his home base? Was it Dana Holgerson, a guy who was being linked to openings like Colorado and Texas Tech? Or was it someone like Chip Long or Ryan Day who had to await the College Football Playoff outcome before deciding to take an interview.

And then, we found out.

Sources told FootballScoop quickly after the original story was published that the candidate interviewing with Vince Tyra was Maryland offensive coordinator, Matt Canada.

That set off a mass “hell no” throughout Twitter.

Who is Matt Canada and why has he caused such outrage via Louisville Twitter? Let me fill you in.

Matt Canada started the 2018-19 season as the Offensive Coordinator for the Maryland Terrapins, a school which quickly became “the story” of the college football season for reasons that wouldn’t lead you to believe he should be a coaching candidate anywhere. After the firing of DJ Durkin, who was deemed to play a large role in the death of offensive tackle , Jordan McNair, Matt Canada took over as the interim coach, leading the Terps to a 5-7 record.

While Canada is a very good offensive minded coach, his affiliation with the Maryland program and years of reports that he is not a good person to work with, have left Louisville fans baffled as to why he would be a candidate even worth interviewing.

This leaking out to the media likely helps to benefit someone in the long run, whether it’s Vince Tyra and Louisville trying to help build the fanbases affection for Scott Satterfield, who appears to be the next coach, or Matt Canada trying to find his next gig.

Either way, Tyra can’t bring in Canada it’s that simple.

At this point all signs seem to be pointing to Scott Satterfield being named the Head Coach of Louisville football program in the next 24-48 hours.

Stay locked into BRL for any updates on the coaching search.