Alouettes whittle list of potential head coaches down to five

The search for the Alouettes’ next head coach continues. But the team has at least whittled its list down to five candidates, all of whom have been interviewed by general manager Danny Maciocia and president Mario Cecchini.

Only one, however, has experience as a CFL head coach — Jason Maas, Edmonton’s head coach from 2016-19 and, most recently, Saskatchewan’s offensive co-ordinator.

The other four, announced on Thursday by the Als, were on the coaching staff last season. They include defensive co-ordinator Noel Thorpe; assistant head coach André Bolduc; special teams co-ordinator Byron Archambault and quarterbacks coach Anthony Calvillo.

Glen Constantin, the head coach at Université Laval, was approached for an interview but made it clear he wants to remain with the Rouge et Or, coming off a Vanier Cup championship last month. The Als also requested, and received, permission to speak with Bob Dyce, Ottawa’s special teams co-ordinator and interim head coach. But the Redblacks last Friday removed his interim title.

“We can only have one and we want to make sure we have the right one,” Maciocia told the Montreal Gazette.

Maciocia was hired in January 2020, but the CFL cancelled that season due to COVID-19. He inherited Khari Jones as the head coach and, although the Als made the playoffs in both 2019 and ’21 under Jones, he was fired in early July, along with defensive co-ordinator Barron Miles, after Montreal started 1-3. Both Jones and Miles were recently hired by the Redblacks.

The new head coach will be Maciocia’s first significant hire, and he can’t afford to make a mistake.

“You have to be a leader of men,” Maciocia said. “It’s good to have experienced some adversity in your life; it only makes you stronger. All of these guys at some point in time have faced some adversity. How they’ve responded to it speaks to me.

“I’ve been talking to players and former coaches who have coached with them. It’s all about the relationships they’ve got with these respective individuals. The player piece to me is very important.”

Four of the five candidates have a close relationship with Maciocia, especially Maas, a former quarterback who played for Maciocia at Edmonton, and Thorpe, who has coached and lived with him. But both Archambault and Calvillo, the Als legendary former quarterback, were with Maciocia when he was the head coach at Université de Montréal. Bolduc, meanwhile, is a former Montreal receiver and the longest-serving Als assistant, having joined the organization in 2014. He’s also a former head coach at the university level, with Sherbrooke.

Given the fact four assistant coaches received preliminary interviews, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest Maciocia’s replacement will have to retain several on his staff.

“I’ve made it crystal clear any candidate doesn’t have to keep the whole staff, but we’d like to keep the foundation,” Maciocia said. “There’s a nucleus that’s there that, I think, we should retain. It was strongly suggested to every single candidate that nucleus should be retained.

“Having said that, there has to be a conversation between the head coach and those coaches. And it has to be reciprocated that they want to stay — especially if it’s from inside since that may affect others. Their noses might be disjointed. Do they want to work with him and, the ones that weren’t picked, do they want to be a part of it.”

There will be a second, and final, round of interviews, Maciocia said, probably consisting of two candidates. While he would like to have the new head coach in place by Christmas, circumstances at the ownership level might delay the process until January.

“I wanted to get the list out today so people think that at least we’re working on it,” Maciocia said.

Meanwhile, the Als have re-signed two of their potential free agents — linebacker Frédéric Chagnon and long-snapper Pierre-Luc Caron.

hzurkowsky@postmedia.com

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