Potential targets for Temple coaching job

Temple is conducting a national search to find a new men’s soccer head coach for the first time in nearly two decades after not renewing long-time head coach David MacWilliams contract earlier this month, but they aren’t alone.

Penn State, Notre Dame and Saint Louis are in the same boat after Bob Warming and Bobby Clark announced their retirements and Mike McGinty’s contract was not renewed with the Billikens.

This means Temple will have plenty of competition for top candidates, but that still leaves a number of quality potential head coaches to consider handing over the reigns to.

Below are some options and pure speculation about who some viable candidates might be to fill the position.

David Brandt
The former Pittsburgh Riverhounds head coach recently lost his job in the USL because of licensing issues and would seem to be a prime candidate for either big coaching vacancy in Pennsylvania - Penn State or Temple. The former head coach at Naval Academy is well known in the state for his exploits with Messiah, where he won six national championships in 12 years. He’s also been named the national coach of the year four times and is the fastest coach in NCAA men’s soccer history to reach the 200-win mark. He also holds a master’s degree from Temple so if his next move is to return to the college ranks, Temple would make a lot of sense.

Jamie Franks
Franks had a bit of a down year out in Denver with his team missing out on a chance for a return run to the College Cup but the 31-year-old also set the bar pretty high in his first two seasons with his team’s going unbeaten in the regular season and advancing to the national semifinals last season. Moving back closer to home could be a good opportunity for the Medford, N.J. native but Temple might not have the pull that the openings at Penn State or Notre Dame will both undoubtedly have.

Omid Namazi
The current United States U18 coach has ties to the area - he lives in Washington Township and is the Director of Soccer at Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals - and is someone with all the tools to reshape the Temple program into a national contender.

Brian Maisonneuve
Temple athletic director Patrick Kraft is an Indiana University alum so it would make sense if he at least had a conversation with Maisonneuve about the opening. It might take a lot of convincing though for the Hoosiers alum to leave Bloomington, where he’s been named one of the top assistants in the country for three straight seasons.

Erik Ronning
After leading Colgate to its first ever NCAA tournament win and a trip to the Sweet 16, Ronning will no doubt be a coach in the running for a move to a bigger program. Whether Temple would be that program is hard to say.

Bryheem Hancock
The Delaware native and former MLS goalkeeper led Radford to a 10-4-4 season in his first season as a head coach after serving as an assistant at Temple’s American Athletic Conference rival South Florida for eight seasons. Hancock is in a great place now to grow as a head coach so it might not make a lot of sense for him to bolt after one season but it would be a step up and a move closer to where he grew up.

James Gledhill
Gledhill was an assistant for the past two seasons under David MacWilliams, but is short on high-level experience having coached women’s soccer at the community college level in Mississippi prior to joining the Owls.