Ryan Clark muses about being hired as Power Four head coach

Ryan Clark was teasing about becoming a Power Four head coach — or was he?

The ESPN NFL analyst and star of The Pivot Podcast took to social media, thought out loud and pressed send. The 45-year-old Clark wondered if he could become a head coach at the Power Four level without any coaching experience.

I wonder if I could get hired to coach a Power 4 without any coaching experience?

I’d put together one hell of a staff and would recruit my butt off though.

Let me call some folks. Might be time.

Maybe go the Andrew Luck route, & GM.

— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) December 3, 2024

It seemingly hasn’t been done before, so why not?

And while it might be unconventional, the concept isn’t entirely without precedent.

Ray Lewis’ name was mentioned at Florida Atlantic, though that idea was quickly rebuked. Meanwhile, he reportedly expressed interest in the head coaching vacancy at Florida International, though the two sides have not been in contact.

And it wouldn’t necessarily be unprecedented at ESPN, either.

For all their shortcomings, Trent Dilfer (UAB) and Jeff Saturday (Indianapolis Colts interim HC) at least had some prior experience at the high school level. Similarly, college basketball coaches Penny Hardaway (Memphis) and Jerry Stackhouse (Vanderbilt) also built their résumés at the high school level before stepping into head coaching roles at the college level.

Then there are the more extreme cases: Josh McCown, who nearly became the Houston Texans’ head coach with only youth coaching experience — the same goes for J.J. Redick, who is now the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. There’s even Steve Nash, who jumped from a player development consultant role with the Golden State Warriors to the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets.

Stranger things have happened.

“I’d put together one hell of a staff and would recruit my butt off though,” he wrote.

He said he would call some folks, adding that it “might be time.”

Or perhaps he could go the Andrew Luck route and be the general manager of his alma mater, but LSU already has that position filled, for what it’s worth.

Whether Clark follows through remains to be seen, but he’s already garnered support from ESPN colleagues like Dan Orlovsky. And Orlovsky is another former NFL player with no prior coaching experience that has been approached by NFL teams for interviews.

Orlovsky, to his credit, seems open to whatever role Clark envisions.

Whatever role he wants

Miss being part of a team

— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) December 3, 2024

Perhaps Clark made his comment tongue-in-cheek, or perhaps he didn’t. Either way, there’s clearly an appetite for others to join him, and who knows—maybe we’ll actually see him turn these musings into a reality.

[Ryan Clark]