North Texas will hire North Carolina assistant head coach for offense Seth Littrell as its new head coach, sources told FootballScoop. ESPN's Brett McMurphy first reported the hiring.
FootballScoop first reported last Friday evening Littrell and TCU co-offensive coordinator Doug Meacham were the finalists for the job.
North Carolina faces Clemson Saturday night in the ACC Championship.
Littrell is in his second season running UNC's offense and coaching the Heels' tight ends, where he's helped the Heels reach their first ACC championship game while ranking second nationally in yards per play and 10th in scoring.
Littrell inherits a North Texas program simultaneously in as good and bad a shape as it's been in some time. The Mean Green are just 1-10 this season -- with losing marks in 10 of their last 11 seasons -- while ranking 124th in scoring offense and scoring defense. However, the Mean Green moved into best-in-its-class Apogee Stadium in 2011 and play in Conference USA, massive upgrades from Fouts Field and the Sun Belt.
Most importantly: North Texas sits in a major metropolitan area with an enough ready-made talent in a half day's drive to build a conference championship contender in short order. Littrell's job will be to tap into that talent stream.
Prior to joining Larry Fedora's staff in Chapel Hill, Littrell spent his formative years climbing branch to branch on the Bob Stoops coaching tree. A native of Muskogee, Okla., Littrell played running back and served as team captain on the Sooners' 2000 national championship team, then started his coaching career as a graduate assistant on Mark Mangino's Kansas staff from 2002-04.
Littrell spent four years coaching running back for Mike Leach at Texas Tech, then spent three seasons in a variety of roles with Mike Stoops at Arizona. Littrell left Tucson to serve as Kevin Wilson's offensive coordinator and tight ends/fullbacks coach at Indiana from 2011-13 before arriving at North Carolina.
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