Pitt now has 3 coaching vacancies — O-line, WR and Defensive coordinator. Jeff Hafley was promoted to secondary coach. Tony Wise is expected to be hired at some point as the offensive line coach.
So really, there are only two openings. Greg Gattuso is the in-house candidate. I would be fine — thrilled even — with him being promoted to DC. Beyond his recruiting for Pitt which has been outstanding, he has plenty of experience as a head coach and game planner at Duquesne. His work as a position coach — tight ends for the first two seasons and D-line this year — has shown him to be a very good teacher.
There is a long list of possibilities. Zeise has a good list, but I’d eliminate Partridge and Jerry Olsavsky. Neither has enough experience to be the DC at this point. Foge Fazio is going to be 70 this year. I really don’t see him wanting to go through that grind.
Tom Bradley would be a highly hysterical hire. I’m not saying he would be a bad hire, but I can’t even take that seriously. (Especially with the renewed rumors that PSU’s administration might actually build up the stones to ask Paterno to at least considers some sort of succession plan and eventually call it a career.) Funny to think about, though.
There’s always the question of money and how much Pitt is willing to pay for an assistant. Something that may stop Pitt from considering Tim Lewis (Carolina Panthers secondary coach), Sal Sunseri (Carolina Panthers D-line coach) and Teryl Austin (Arizona Cardinals defensive backs coach).
AD Steve Pederson says the money shouldn’t be a problem.
“We’ll hire good coaches. I don’t think we’ve ever been in a position where we said we couldn’t afford to hire a coach,” Pederson said. “You find the right coach. So far, we’ve been able to hire them and get them in here.
“Sometimes, a school comes along and offers a coach more money than you feel you can justify paying at the time. We’re going to be fair, but we won’t get into bidding wars for assistant coaches.”
That Rhoads got a reported $400K from Auburn. Wow. No. I’m not going to bother. He’s gone, that’s all that matters. OK, maybe this highlight from his press conference at Auburn.
“We are going to be fundamentally sound. Before I even talk scheme, we are going to be very fundamentally sound. We are going to back-pedal well, we are going to take great steps as linebackers, we are going to get off and use our hands well. We are going to do all the things a great football team does fundamentally. We are going to be sound schematically. We are going to have people in the gaps they are supposed to be in. We are going to have people deep and keep offensive players in front of us.
“We are going to do those things, regardless of scheme. We are going to tackle extremely well. It is obvious that the better athletes you are playing with, the better tacklers you are going to have. I believe wholeheartedly that you can teach average athletes to be great tacklers and great athletes to be even better tacklers. And we are going to run to the football. Those things I can guarantee you.”
[Emphasis added.] Fundamentally bend-but-don’t-break folks. I will skip the part about tackling.
Coach Wannstedt doesn’t see any harm to the recruiting class from the coaching turnover, and he does say that recruiting accumen is vitally important to being hired. Not to mention, being a FOW (Friend of Wannstedt).
“None of these jobs will have any bearing on recruiting,” Wannstedt said. “We’re out there and still working hard, so we’re not under a lot of pressure to try and get them filled. We want the right mix of guys and want to make good decisions.”
…
“Usually, I have found that hiring people I am familiar with or I know has produced the best results, and this is no different. Obviously, I have a lot of people whose opinions I trust who I will look to.”
One thing that is clear. Anyone who wants to be considered for a job on Wannstedt’s staff needs to be an excellent recruiter and like that part of the job.
“Like I said at my first press conference, you need to have two excellent coordinators and the other seven coaches on your staff need to be recruiters,” Wannstedt said. “That’s always been my philosophy and that’s how successful programs do things as well.”
Waiting and watching.
Somebody brought up Yogi Roth as WR coach. He is working with USC right now. That is an interesting thought. Yogi seems like a guy that is going to make it eventually.
those kind of calls from Billy H still burn in my memory.
That is the night when Rhoads should have been gone, folks. Worst defeat in Pitt history to a high school team with a quarterback later rumored to have been THROWING games that year. He completed about 55 passes that night, and any incompletions were because of his high school receivers. Never sacked or pressured once. Pitt had NFL corners and Rhoads never brought them up to challenge. Atrocious, gutless, pathetic and … I have to add pathetic on more time again. And repeated dozens of other times in his ridiculously long tenure here. No question that Wannstedt took over the D after the Navy game. I know Joe Starkey claims Rhoads was the mastermind of the WVU game but I think he was just the mouthpiece for DW or GG’s defensive at that point. He jumped up and down on the sideline very effectively, I’ll give him that.
That Yogi Roth call was pretty intriguing, if only so that I can burst into spontaneous “Hyman Roth” impersonations during games. As I recall he was able to really click with Antonio Bryant/keep AB from going insane, which is a pretty impressive piece of coaching from a 22 year old player. It would be interesting to see what he’s picked up from Carrol and Sarkasian in terms of coaching and more importantly recruiting.
Terry Smith from Gateway could be another guy. He is a nitter, but has been getting alot of attention as a good coach. I mean nat’l attention especially being a coach for the army all american game. He could get Corey Brown and Dorian Bell…
I really like Yogi though.
But our long nightmare is finally over there so time to start healing and move on. Just don’t hire the UConn guy, let’s not forget that UConn wasn’t exactly the 76 Steelers defense. Remember WVU put about 77 points on the them the week before our game.
That said, I would also have no objections to Gattuso as the new DC.
Which begs the next question. Assuming Gattuso is promoted, don’t we also need a new linebacker coach (to fill void of Rhoads as a position coach) in addition to a new WR coach?
Should be interesting to see which names get tossed around as this story unfolds.