College Football

Mark Whipple hired as UMass football coach, per report

Whipple most recently worked as the Cleveland Browns' quarterbacks coach in 2012 and coached the Minutemen from 1998-2003.

By Scott Coleman@scottcoleman55 Jan 10, 2014, 11:51pm EST

The UMass Minutemen have reportedly hired Mark Whipple as their next head coach. Whipple was the head coach at UMass from 1998-2003 and led the team to a 49-26 record before taking a job in the NFL.

According to sources, Mark Whipple will be named next head football coach at UMass.
— Steve Buckley (@BuckinBoston) January 11, 2014

Whipple, 56, replaces Charley Molnar in Amherst after back-to-back one-win seasons. He has experience at just about every level of football, getting his start in 1980 as an assistant coach at St. Lawrence. Whipple was the quarterbacks coach with the Arizona Wranglers, a United States Football League team, in 1985 and landed his first head coaching gig as the head coach at the University of New Haven in 1988.

After Whipple left UMass for the Steelers in 2004, he worked as the quarterbacks coach in Pittsburgh for three seasons. He became an offensive assistant with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2007-2008, and then returned to the college ranks at Miami to become the offensive coordinator for the Hurricanes. He most recently worked as the Cleveland Browns' quarterbacks coach from 2011-2012.

The university has not confirmed the hire as of late Friday evening.