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Citadel football coach Kevin Higgins will leave after nine years at the military school to take an assistant coaching job at Wake Forest, The Post and Courier has learned.

Higgins had a record of 43-58 in nine seasons at The Citadel, with two winning seasons -- 7-4 in 2007 and 7-4 again in 2012. Last season, the Bulldogs went 5-7.

Higgins and new Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson worked together at Lehigh University, where Higgins had a record of 56-25-1 in seven seasons from 1994-2000. The 2014 season would have the final season on Higgins' current contract at The Citadel.

CitadelGrad wrote:He was entering the last year of his contract and probably saw the writing on the wall. He got while the gittin' was good.

Ibanez wrote:

CitadelGrad wrote:He was entering the last year of his contract and probably saw the writing on the wall. He got while the gittin' was good.

Better to resign than be fired.

Libertine wrote:I love The Citadel but if Charlie Taaffe takes that job, he'd have to be drunk.

bucs90 wrote:Maybe they should look at former CSU HC Jay Mills? He took CSU over the hump of a .500-ish team to 2005 BSC champs, and was the mentor of current CSU HC Jamey Chadwell. He knows the Charleston area well, and as a former assistant/OC at Harvard, he can certainly recruit to academically tough places.

Higgins' departure opens the door for an intriguing possibility - the return of former Citadel coach Charlie Taaffe, who led the Bulldogs to a Southern Conference title in 1992.

Taaffe, 63, is the respected offensive coordinator at Central Florida, which went 11-1 this season (losing only to South Carolina) and will play Baylor in the BCS Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Taaffe is reportedly a top candidate for the job at Army, where Rich Ellerson was just fired.

Taaffe had a 55-47-1 record in nine seasons at The Citadel, including the 11-2 mark in 1992, when the Bulldogs won the SoCon and were ranked No. 1 in the nation. But he was fired in 1996 after a second DUI arrest in three years. He was acquitted both times, remains popular among Citadel boosters and was recently voted into the military school's Athletics Hall of Fame. He and Citadel athletic director Larry Leckonby worked together at Maryland.

Taaffe did not return a phone message Monday, but has told friends he's eager to be a head coach again. He earns $261,000 a year at UCF, according to USA Today.

CID1990 wrote:I don't know what the obsession is with ASU and GSU leaving the SoCon as having any effect on whether a coach would want to take a job with any SoCon school. Even The Citadel was 3-1 versus those two in the last two seasons.

Doggerel wrote:

CID1990 wrote:I don't know what the obsession is with ASU and GSU leaving the SoCon as having any effect on whether a coach would want to take a job with any SoCon school. Even The Citadel was 3-1 versus those two in the last two seasons.

If you are alright with beating your chest on beating them recently, look at how we did it. App State and Georgia Southern only played a couple of freshmen this season. That's like playing with your hands tied behind your back. Then the other win was with Coach Moore taking an extra season after they wanted him out because he was pretty much senile.
Yeah, great wins.

BJuice wrote:Coach Mills is now the pastor of a church in Tennessee. I believe he is truly retired (done) from coaching. Pastoring a church is not the type of job that one can leave for a job opening in the coaching business.

Libertine wrote:I love The Citadel but if Charlie Taaffe takes that job, he'd have to be drunk.

OL FU wrote:

Libertine wrote:I love The Citadel but if Charlie Taaffe takes that job, he'd have to be drunk.

Besides that he ruined a great rivalry by moving the game from the last game of the year

Libertine wrote: Incorrect. Jay Mills is now the Executive Director of First Broad Street United Methodist in Kingsport, TN. Essentially, he is in charge of the church's programs but is not a pastor. I agree that he is probably done with coaching but I say that only because his pattern of applying for every job under the sun has changed from coaching jobs to administrative ones.

EDIT -- Oddly enough, there is also another Jay Mills who is the rector of an Episcopal church in Kingsport so I can see the confusion.

Mills made a tough decision last year, but a decision he stands behind. His decade on the sidelines at CSU has prepared him for his new career running a church in Kingsport, Tenn. "I really am enjoying it, seeing how football translates to life, and a church I'm happy to continue to serve in a Christian ministry," Mills said.

BJuice wrote:

Libertine wrote: I should have known that it would take the omnipotence from Liberty to clear things up. From now on I guess I will pass everything through the Falwell office to gain approval for speaking, writing, or typing.