Oregon State coaching candidates: Who replaces Jonathan Smith?

The Beavers have the first job opening this cycle that has come as a result of someone leaving and not getting fired.

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Jonathan Smith is off to Michigan State. It will be hard to top what Smith did at his alma mater, especially in a post-Pac-12 world, but Oregon State has mastered the art of doing more with less, and there are talented coaches out there who will want this job.

This is also the first job opening due to the coach getting hired elsewhere, and not because of a firing, so the workload, at least from a football standpoint, should be manageable.

Let’s look at some potential candidates.

Bronco Mendenhall. Mendenhall transferred from Snow College to Oregon State as a player. I asked him why in 2019. Turns out he had wanted to go to BYU, and, well …

“Literally my college choice was which team of the teams recruiting me played BYU, and that’s why I chose Oregon State. That shows you my maturity level or lack thereof. We beat BYU when I was at Oregon State, at BYU. I laid on the 50-yard line, spread eagle, after the game. And that success lasted and felt good for about 10 minutes and then it was like, OK, well that wasn’t worth it.”

Could he return to Oregon State, where he was an assistant from 1995-96? Mendenhall went 99-43 in 11 years at BYU before leaving for Virginia, where he turned the Cavaliers into ACC Coastal division champions and went 36-38 in six years before retiring after the 2021 season. That retirement always felt more like a break, and it would surprise no one if a re-charged Mendenhall gets back on a sideline soon.