Maurice Linguist on the short list

Maurice Linguist is reportedly on the short list of candidates to head UB football. The former UB defensive backs coach under Jeff Quinn has moved around quite a bit, had some great postings, and is now the co-defensive coordinator at Michigan.

He was in Buffalo yesterday, and there was a walk-through of the facilities by UB athletic director Mark Alnutt and two candidates. One can assume the final two candidates.

Linguist joined the staff at UB in 2012 following a stay at James Madison, where he has spent the previous three seasons, and had a outstanding playing career at Baylor University.

In his first season at Buffalo, UB’s starting corner backs, Najja Johnson and Cortney Lester, ranked first and second in the MAC in interceptions while the entire defense ranked fourth in the MAC and 48th nationally in pass efficiency defense - a 53-slot improvement from 2011.

Since Buffalo he’s went on to Iowa State, Mississippi State, Minnesota, and Texas A&M. At each of those stops he coached the defensive backs.

He spent 2020 with the Dallas Cowboys before getting a job with Michigan. After one season coaching defensive backs he was named co-defensive coordinator.

This would be an amazing hire by Alnutt. Big name, ties to Buffalo, ties to the MAC footprint and has developed recruiting relationships as a P5 position coach.

The challenge would be the pay scale. At Michigan Linuguist is set to make 600-700K (according to some google searches). The Buffalo job may offer a faster path to a high profile P5 coaching gig than the coordinator route, how much value is that? Can that value and UB’s pusrse “meet in the middle” for Linuguist?