After he coaches Temple’s season finale Saturday against North Texas as the program’s interim head coach, Everett Withers hopes the backdrop of his next gig will be much closer to the Atlantic Ocean.

He wants to be the next head coach at North Myrtle Beach High School.

“And I'm not threatening that guy that's got that job now,” Withers said Monday with a smile as he essentially told a room full of reporters, among other things, that this would be his last season of college football. “I'm just kind of kidding. … I’ve got a house down there, so kind of open up me a little place down there and maybe sell clams or shrimp or something like that.”

Withers, who served as the team’s defensive coordinator last year and through the first 10 games of this season, took over as Temple’s interim head coach when athletic director Arthur Johnson fired former head coach Stan Drayton following the program’s Nov. 16 win over FAU.

Withers is 61 years old now. He’s been in college football since he was a four-year letterwinner for then-head coach Mack Brown back in the early 1980s.

He's coached for three different NFL teams. This is his second stint as an interim head coach, having stepped in at North Carolina back in 2011 when an NCAA investigation into academic misconduct and improper player benefits cost Butch Davis his job.

He’s been hired and fired. He’s won and lost plenty of games and recruits. He’ll do his best to help Temple (3-8) close out its season with a win at home over a North Texas team that has lost its last five games. He knows he’ll be doling out handshakes and hugs prior to the game to the Owls’ seniors and their families and must do right by them for one more week, but he looked and sounded like a man during Monday’s weekly head coach media availability who is looking for a more serene lifestyle.

As was the case a week ago, Withers’ remarks about the state of the Temple football program and college football in general were far more interesting than anything about the upcoming game.

After he was done talking about what Temple would have to do to beat North Texas, a reporter asked Withers to talk about some of the younger players on the roster who have impressed him this season.

Withers was hesitant to name names because he knows heaping praise upon them will make them easy transfer portal targets for other programs who have received more NIL resources and support than what he feels he’s seen at Temple.

“I'm trying to think of names right now guys, because … in today's game, there are no redshirts and all that,” Withers began. “You just play the best players that can play now, because it doesn't matter who they are.”

Then he got to the interesting part that all coaches know and some fans who haven’t paid as much attention do not.

“If you develop them at this level, you're going to lose them because somebody's going to pay them and they're going to go somewhere else,” Withers said. “So I'm really careful about putting names out there of people that that have played well, that developed. Because they're going to get $50,000, $70,000 somewhere and be gone.

“That's been proven here to happen, and so I hope this administration hears the need for finances to keep good players on this football team.”

Withers was then asked if he talks to Johnson, who is now immersed in a search to find Drayton’s replacement, about this stuff.

“Oh, yeah,” Withers said. “A lot.”

Three questions later, Withers was asked about where he sees all of this going – NIL, revenue sharing and how it has drastically changed college athletics. He said he’s heard from his peers that there’s been some jealousy and resentment once one player knows what the other is making.

“It’s like the toothpaste being out of the tube,” Withers said, using the same term he used last week. “I don't know how we get it back, but something's gotta happen. I'm all for the players making money, so don't get me wrong here. I'm all for the players getting paid.

“I'm not for the players getting paid out of value. I think there ought to be some kind of scale. There are places that are playing paying guys a lot of money, and there’s second and third team, and there's bickering in locker rooms. I've got tons of friends at places that go, ‘You know, the players are bickering in the locker room because the guy next to him makes more money than he does, and he's playing more snaps.’ So I don't know how to put that toothpaste back in the tube, but it's gotta happen.”

It was only a matter of time before we started hearing about that, Withers lamented. When he was asked if he had heard about NIL donors who were starting to complain about not getting a return on their investment when their team lost, Withers nodded and said that’s been part of it as well.

Is that another problem that has come out of this?

Yes, Withers said. But the way his experienced football mind sees it, he’d rather have that problem than not have it at all.

“I’d like for it to become a problem at Temple,” Withers said. “It ain't a problem right now. There ain't enough money being put in any collective here. Those are problems that you’d like to have to fix.”

Watch Withers' Monday press conference here.