The three-year head man at Buffalo finishes his tenure at 14-23, and will become the second Group of Five head coach to depart for the Tide for an assistant job
Maurice Linguist, who finished his third season of service as Buffalo Bulls head coach after replacing the late-departing Lance Leipold, has reportedly resigned his position to accept a defensive assistant job at Alabama over a month after the end of the Bulls’ latest season.
Adam Rittenberg and Chris Low of ESPN were first to report the transaction on Tuesday afternoon.
Rittenberg and Low report Linguist will likely work with Alabama’s defensive backs under new head coach Kalen DeBoer, who himself left Washington last week to replace the now-retired Nick Saban.
Linguist, whose background includes stints as a defensive assistant at Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Michigan and the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, went 14-23 as a head coach over three years of service.
Linguist’s teams were very back-and-forth units; the 7-6 campaign culminating in a Camellia Bowl victory was sandwiched between two seasons of four-or-less wins in 2021 and 2023.
The one thing Buffalo was extremely consistent about in those three seasons was fielding ball-hawking defenses. The Bulls were one of the MAC’s top teams in turnovers caused in his tenure, with several defensive backs earning all-MAC honors, including Bronco Nagurski Award watchlister Devin Grant. Buffalo caused 19 turnovers in 2023 (11 interceptions, eight fumbles recovered), 26 turnovers (13 each of interceptions and fumbles recovered) in 2022 and had 12 turnovers (three interceptions, nine fumble recoveries on 22 forced) in 2021.
The latest campaign for the Bulls started 0-4 in out-of-conference play with a loss to FCS Fordham amongst the results— but followed that up with a 3-1 start in Mid-American Conference to take the MAC East lead over expected contenders Miami and Ohio— before losing their last four games in a row to finish 3-9 on the season.
This is a developing story which will be updated as more news develops.