Maryland nearing choice on head coach
Alabama offensive coordinator Mike Locksley and Michigan assistant Pep Hamilton reportedly have emerged as front-runners for the Maryland coaching job.
Matt Canada, who served as the Terrapins interim coach this season after former coach DJ Durkin was placed on administrative leave, also is expected to be interviewed.
Locksley, 48, served as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at Maryland from 1997 through 2002 and as offensive coordinator from 2012 through 2015.
Hamilton, 44, joined Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan staff in January 2017 after serving as quarterbacks coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2016. An assistant under Harbaugh at Stanford, Hamilton was mentioned early on as a candidate at Maryland when Durkin was hired in 2015.
North Carolina
New Tar Heels coach Mack Brown is adding Dre’ Bly, Tim Brewster and Tim Cross to his staff. The school announced the hirings along with the decision to retain Tommy Thigpen. Bly was an All-American under Brown for the Heels in the 1990s before an 11-year NFL career. He’ll coach cornerbacks. Brewster will coach tight ends. He coached with Brown at North Carolina and Texas. Cross will coach the defensive line after five seasons at Air Force. He also worked under Brown at Texas. Thigpen will be co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach.
Elsewhere
Byron Murphy returned a deflected interception 66 yards for the game’s only touchdown to lead No. 10 Washington (10-3) to a 103 victory against No. 17 Utah (9-4) in an offensively challenged Pac-12 Conference championship at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. In a matchup of the two stingiest defenses in the conference, neither offense could get much of anything going at all.
• Marcus Childers threw a touchdown pass, his fourth of the game, to D.J. Brown with 1:09 to go and Northern Illinois (8-5) rallied from a 20-point deficit to take a 30-29 victory against Buffalo (10-3) in the Mid-American Conference championship at Ford Field in Detroit. The 35-yard touchdown came on the eighth play of a 70-yard drive that took a little more than two minutes.