Latest on University of Minnesota coaching search as top candidates emerge, including Brett Larson – The Athletic

MINNEAPOLIS — University of Minnesota’s athletic director Mark Coyle spoke publicly on Monday for the first time since the Gophers and men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko parted ways last week. Despite an impressive poker face, it is clear that Coyle and the search committee are well on their way to hiring a replacement.

After introducing Greg “Boom” May as the new women’s coach — a hiring that was announced Sunday — Coyle confirmed that he spent the weekend conducting Zoom interviews with prospective men’s candidates while he was at the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in St. Louis.

According to multiple sources, two of the candidates were St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson and Hartford Wolf Pack coach and Gophers alum Grant Potulny. As of late Monday, Larson seemed to be emerging as the favorite.

Larson, a native of Duluth and former University of Minnesota-Duluth defenseman, started at St. Cloud State in 2018, replacing Motzko after winning a national championship at UMD as an assistant. He was also part of David Carle’s USA Hockey staff that won gold medals at the 2024 and 2025 World Juniors.

Potulny, a former Gophers captain and assistant coach, won two national championships as a player, including being the MVP of the 2002 Frozen Four after scoring the overtime winner in the title game against Maine. He began his head coaching career at Northern Michigan. Leading the Gophers would undoubtedly be his dream gig.

Coyle did say it is not a prerequisite for the job to go to a Gophers alum.

With the college landscape changing, Coyle clearly understands the importance of finding a coach who can handle everything from coaching to recruiting to the business aspect of the program. The next coach must have a comfort level with the transfer portal, NIL money, revenue sharing and Canadian major junior players coming south to the NCAA.

The school might also eventually hire a general manager (or multiple managers) to oversee that side of the operation.

Coyle said he began talking to Motzko about his future a month ago. He had one year left on a contract that pays him $750,000. After the Gophers lost to Penn State to wrap up their first losing season since 1999, Coyle met with Motzko last Monday and Tuesday to discuss the long-term future of the program. The goal was to come up with the best decision for the next several years of Gophers hockey — not the next 12 months — as Motzko began to contemplate retirement.

Coyle gave credit to Motzko for coming to the same landing point as him.

“As that conversation went on and we talked about it for a day or two, I think we both realized that the best long-term decision … was for him to step down and step away from our program and for us to go in a new direction,” said Coyle, who is extremely close with Motzko. “We have seen more changes in college athletics in the last four or five years than you’ve seen for the last 50 years. What is going on, it impacts hockey.”

Coyle wants to hire a coach who understands what Gopher hockey means to the state.

“It is a big, big deal,” Coyle said. “We pay attention to it, but we need someone that can manage this program, on and off the ice, in the new landscape of college athletics.”

As far as conducting Zoom interviews as opposed to in-person interviews, Coyle said this is no different than the way he hired men’s basketball coach Nico Medved and women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who took only three years to get the program back to the Sweet 16.

Coyle said he and his staff and the search committee, which consists of about a half dozen people, are being thorough with their vetting and due diligence, but he added that he realizes that a coaching change creates anxiety for current athletes, incoming athletes and recruits.

So he wants to act “very quickly,” especially with the transfer portal opening April 13.

“We have a very desirable job,” he said. “We have people who want to be here, and it’s on us to find the right person that can lead this program in this new age of Gopher hockey. We have to find somebody whose knees aren’t going to buckle, because these aren’t easy jobs. There’s a lot that comes with this job.

“My number one thing is we need to find somebody when they get here, they can step in and understand the expectations.”

Motzko turns 65 on Friday, and Coyle said Motzko told him this is the first time he wasn’t coaching on his birthday.

“Bob didn’t like it. Nobody liked what happened this year,” Coyle said. “We need to find someone that can get this program back to where we want to be.”

On the women’s side, May spent the past three years on Brad Frost’s staff as associate coach. Frost led the team to national championships in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016, but the Gophers haven’t made the title game since 2019.

“We need to compete at the national level,” Coyle said of a program that has seen Ohio State and Wisconsin surpass it.

Greg May and Mark Coyle pose together on Monday. (Michael Russo / The Athletic)

“This is not a complete overhaul. This is more of a reboot,” said May, who grew up in California and played at Burnsville. “I’d say it’s a fresh voice with fresh expectations. And we’re close, and we have been close, but unfortunately, obviously, as you know, close isn’t what we want here at Minnesota, and there’s some change that has to be made to make sure that we get over the hump.

“We have to raise our level of compete and intensity. We have to raise our level of discipline and accountability, and we need to have that unwavering belief that this is truly the best place to play college hockey in the country, because it is.”