Michigan coaching search: Urban Meyer feels Vanderbilt's Clark Lea 'made sense' for job

In the week since the Michigan head coaching job came open after Sherrone Moore was fired for cause Dec. 10, an array of potential replacements have been volleyed around, most current sitting head coaches. Everyone from Alabama‘s Kalen DeBoer to USC‘s Lincoln Riley has been named in connection to the blueblood opening in Ann Arbor.

And while many of the initial candidates have distanced themselves from the opening — including DeBoer asserting he has “no interest” in discussing other jobs — several names have continued to percolate. For Urban Meyer, the former Ohio State head coach-turned-FOX Sports analyst, the one name to peak his interest was Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea.

“You know the name (that intrigued me), I met him real quick at the Hall of Fame, is Clark Lea,” Meyer said on Wednesday’s episode of The Triple Option podcast with fellow FOX personalities Mark Ingram II and Rob Stone. “You talk about a guy, I know Brady Quinn loves him, he was at Notre Dame I guess, and I don’t much about him other than the job he’s done (at Vanderbilt), but when I saw that name show up, that made sense.”

Meyer’s support aside, Lea — who just led the Commodores to the program’s first-ever 10-win season — isn’t among the five potential candidates On3’s Pete Nakos recently named as Michigan’s current leading targets. But there was one candidate Meyer could also see fitting in well in Ann Arbor: Arizona State‘s Kenny Dillingham.

“And then the coach at Arizona State, he’s done a great job and I keep hearing his name bounced around,” Meyer continued before suggesting many of these early names are mostly for show. “I would imagine they’re going to throw some things against the wall to see if they stick, and then they’re going to get real, which normally happens, which means they’re going to hire a guy that wants to be a Wolverine.”

Dillingham had a interesting response when recently addressing the rumors connecting him to the Wolverines opening, appearing to downplay any potential panic from the Sun Devils’ fanbase.

“I think my job is to try to do whatever I can for the people that are with me, right, the people that are in the foxhole, the coaches that are in the foxhole with me,” Dillingham said. “I got to do whatever I can to fight for those people, for my family, for everything from that perspective

“And, you know, I love it here. I’ve said that since day one. That’s absolutely never changing, absolutely never changing. So, yeah. That piece is never changing.”

Michigan has hired search firm TurnkeyZRG to lead its coaching search with the expectation a new hire would be in place prior to the opening of the NCAA Transfer Portal on Jan. 2.