• Oregon State is searching for a new head football coach after firing Trent Bray early in the season.
• The university faces competition from nearly a dozen other major programs also seeking new head coaches.
• Potential candidates include former Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst and current Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi.

Oregon State football is looking for its new head coach.

While a disastrous season is coming to an end Nov. 29 with a matchup against Pac-12 foe Washington State, the Beavers’ search for a head coach is well underway.

Oregon State began the season with Trent Bray at the helm, but fired the OSU alum after an 0-7 start and just two seasons in charge. Interim head coach Robb Akey has led the Beavers to a 2-2 record since but has not emerged as a top candidate for the job long term.

Nearly a dozen major college football programs across the country have fired their head coaches this season. Stanford, UCLA, Arkansas, Penn State, Florida, LSU, Auburn, California and more are filling vacancies and competing for top candidates.

The national coaching carousel is speeding up and Oregon State has some hefty competition in the search for the right head coach to lead the Beavers into a new era of Pac-12 football in Corvallis.

Here are some of the coaches reportedly gaining traction as candidates for the Oregon State football head coaching job.

Paul Chryst

Chryst does not currently operate as an NCAA coach, but he has the most experience of nearly any candidate rumored to be in the running for the Oregon State gig.

Chryst, 60, is a Madison, Wisc., native who played quarterback for the Badgers in the 1980s. He jumpstarted his coaching career with West Virginia, followed by short stints with teams in the Canadian Football League and NFL.

In 2003, Chryst joined the Oregon State staff as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, a job that lasted just two years. Chryst was notably in charge of the offense with OSU legends in quarterback Derek Anderson and running back Steven Jackson.

He then jumped to Wisconsin for seven years in similar roles before landing his first head coaching job with Pittsburgh in 2012.

Wisconsin called Chryst back in 2015, where he spent seven years as the Badgers’ head coach. He had an overall record of 86-45 as head coach of Wisconsin.

Kerry Eggers, a longtime sports reporter based out of Portland, reported Nov. 24 that Chryst pulled his name out of contention for the OSU role despite being a favorable candidate.

Tosh Lupoi

Lupoi is currently the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for the Oregon Ducks. Lupoi, 44, joined the Ducks in 2022 and has been an integral part of the team’s success in the transition to the Big 10.

He’s a California native who played for the Golden Bears in the early 2000s. His first coaching gig was with the Golden Bears, too; he served as defensive line coach from 2008-11.

A jump to Washington in the same role in 2012 was followed by a five-year run with Alabama. With the Tide, Lupoi acted as a defensive analyst, then linebackers coach, then co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

In 2019, Lupoi moved to the NFL. He was a defensive line coach for the Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars in consecutive years until joining the Ducks in 2022.

Lupoi is a two-time national champion as a coach with Alabama but has never been a head coach. His credible defensive coaching experience working with some of the most talented defenders to come out of college over the last decade, as well as his recruiting prowess, would make him an enticing get for numerous programs.

On Nov. 24, Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said Lupoi is a “relentless worker,” and will make “an outstanding head coach,” one day when the right job comes along.

With a recent California head coaching vacancy, Lupoi has also emerged as a candidate for that job. There has been no official reporting on Lupoi’s interest in the Oregon State job despite social media buzz.

JaMarcus Shephard

Shephard is currently an assistant head coach, co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Alabama. The 42-year-old Indiana native joined the Tide’s staff in February of 2024 following a career that’s taken him across the country.

After starting out as a high school coach in the mid-2000s, Shephard took a job to Western Kentucky, where he acted as an assistant in numerous facets from 2011-15.

Shephard had a brief one-year role with Washington State before moving to Purdue in 2017. There, he was pass game coordinator and eventually co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach.

His name was recalled by Washington in 2022-23 under current Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer. Shephard served as assistant head coach, pass game coordinator and wide receivers coach for an offense that fielded now-Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix and all-American now-NFL receivers Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk.  

Shephard is renowned for his work with top-end wide receivers, such as Alabama’s Ryan Williams, and as a hard worker on the recruiting trail.

Shephard is reported to be on Oregon State’s candidates list by On3.

Brent Vigen

Vigen is currently the head coach at Montana State. He’s led the Bobcats to a 10-2 record this season in the Big Sky Conference, with the team’s only two losses coming in the first two weeks to Oregon and South Dakota State.

Vigen, 50, is a North Dakota native with 15 years of assistant coaching experience at North Dakota State. His roles spread across the offense from tight ends coach, quarterbacks coach, running backs coach and was eventually named offensive coordinator from 2009-13.

Following that, Vigen had a two-year stint with Wyoming, where he was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, followed by three years of associate head coaching duties. Vigen, notably, was Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen’s coach and coordinator at Wyoming.

Since 2021, Vigen has been head coach of Montana State. He has an 88% win percentage with the Bobcats, the best in MSU history. In 2022, Vigen won the Eddie Robinson Award for college best coach of a Football Championship Subdivision team.

Vigen landed at the Portland International Airport earlier this week, as reported by The Oregonian’s Ryan Clarke, but did not share what he was doing at PDX.

Rumors and social media are in a frenzy that Vigen made the trip to Oregon to interview and meet for the Oregon State coaching vacancy.

Justin Wilcox

Wilcox was the head coach of California for the past nine seasons before being fired by the Golden Bears on Nov. 24.

Wilcox, a Eugene native, went to Junction City High School and played for the Ducks upon graduation. He played from 1996-99 under head coach Mike Bellotti.

Before his nine-year tenure with California, Wilcox travelled the country as a defensive coordinator with a track record of producing quality defenses.

From 2006-09, Wilcox was the defensive coordinator at Boise State. He then bounced to Tennessee for the same gig, then Washington, then USC, then Wisconsin. Wilcox spent less than two years at each of those schools before taking the reins in Berkeley in 2017.

At Cal, Wilcox delivered a career record of 48-55 all time. Wilcox was 5-4 against Oregon State, including a 34-15 win this season over former OSU head coach Trent Bray.

The 49-year-old is not likely to be a candidate for top head coaching vacancies around the NCAA following his more-to-be-desired stint with Cal. But his defensive mind and years of experience make him a quality candidate for the opening in Corvallis.

Landon Bartlett covers high school sports and Oregon State for the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at lbartlett@salem.gannett.com or on X or Instagram @bartlelo.