BOSTON -- Boston College has received permission to speak with New York Giants quarterbacks coach Kevin Gilbride about its
head coaching job.
Gilbride is the second NFL quarterbacks coach to be considered for the job left vacant last week when Tom O'Brien ended 10 years in that position to become head coach at North Carolina State. Mark Whipple of the Steelers already has been interviewed, Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher said Monday.
Giants coach Tom Coughlin confirmed Wednesday at his regular news conference in East Rutherford, N.J., that the team gave Gilbride permission. Coughlin spent six years at Boston College -- as head coach from 1991 to 1993 and as quarterbacks coach from 1981
to 1983.
Gilbride, 55, was head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 1997-98. He is in his second season as quarterbacks coach with the Giants. Since entering the NFL in 1989 as quarterbacks coach for
the Houston Oilers, he also has served as offensive coordinator for the Oilers, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.
A native of New Haven, Conn., Gilbride started his coaching career at Idaho State in 1974 and moved on to Tufts, American International and Southern Connecticut State, all New England schools, before serving two seasons as an assistant with Ottawa of the Canadian Football League.
On Monday, Cowher said his assistant, Whipple, is "excited about the opportunity. I think he'd be a great candidate for that school. What Mark has done has been well documented."
Whipple was head coach at Massachusetts, leading the Minutemen to the 1998 Division I-AA championship before taking the job with the Steelers.
Frank Spaziani, defensive coordinator under O'Brien, was named interim coach for BC in the Meineke Car Care Bowl against Navy in Charlotte,
N.C., on Dec. 30.