Young candidate at Tulsa

Hurricane interested in KU coordinator for opening

Kansas University defensive coordinator Bill Young is a candidate for the head coaching job at Tulsa, according to a report in Monday’s Tulsa World.

Young, 56, is an Oklahoma City native who played at Oklahoma State and earned degrees at OSU and Central Oklahoma.

He spent the majority of his 34-year coaching career in the state of Oklahoma, sandwiching two stints as an assistant at OSU (1968-69 and 1976-78) around jobs in Oklahoma’s prep ranks at Carl Albert High and Putnam City West before moving on to Iowa State in 1979.

Young worked as defensive line coach and defensive coordinator under head coach John Cooper at Tulsa from 1980 to 1984 before following Cooper to Arizona State (1985-88) and Ohio State (1988-95).

Young, who was unavailable for comment Tuesday night, was defensive coordinator and tackles coach under first-year KU coach Mark Mangino.

Young, who never has been a collegiate head coach, will have plenty of competition for the Tulsa job. The opening has created plenty of interest in the coaching ranks, despite the fact the Golden Hurricane haven’t had a winning season since 1991.

Coach Keith Burns resigned Dec. 2 after a 1-11 season, which included back-to-back losses to Baylor and KU.

TU athletic director Judy MacLeod told the Tulsa World she would like to hire a replacement for Burns, who was 7-28 in three seasons, before Christmas.