ACC Coaching Gets A Youth Movement

ACC coaches just got younger, much younger. That’s collectively, not individually. No going back, fellas.

There are still five head coach who qualify for Social Security -- Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim (72), Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (70), Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton (69), Miami’s Jim Larranaga (68), and North Carolina’s Roy Williams (67). All but Hamilton have directed a team to the Final Four.

There’s a 40-year spread between Boeheim and Dave Padgett, an assistant elevated as Louisville’s “acting” head coach as of this writing. Padgett is not only one of the youngest head coaches in ACC history at age 32, but remarkably shares the same birth date with Krzyzewski, 38 years his elder. Padgett is 30 years younger than the man he replaced, Hall of Famer Rick Pitino.

For purposes of comparison, Dean Smith was 30 when he took over at North Carolina in 1961 and 66 when he retired in 1997. Jeff Jones was barely 30 when he replaced Terry Holland at Virginia in 1990.

Padgett is the third active ACC coach directing the program at his alma mater, after Williams at North Carolina and Boeheim at Syracuse. Assuming Padgett remains in place, he becomes the seventh of 15 ACC coaches with four or fewer years at his current post.

Reading the swirls of speculation amid the realities of big-business basketball, at least BC’s Jim Christian and Clemson’s Brad Brownell appear to be in some employment jeopardy, as of course is true for the unproven Padgett, a stopgap while Pitino walks the plank.

Christian is the only coach whose team plays on his birthday. The Eagles travel to Notre Dame on Feb. 6.