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May 10, 2011

Minor Duty Reshuffling

Filed under: Assistants,Coaches,Football — Chas @ 8:26 pm

Now this is the kind of news you expect in a quiet offseason.

University of Pittsburgh head football coach Todd Graham announced a change regarding the coaching staff’s positional assignments for this year.

Tony Gibson, whose previous positional focus was on the cornerbacks, will now coach the entire secondary and serve as pass defense coordinator.

Randall McCray, who was initially assigned the safeties, will now coach the outside linebackers. McCray will continue to coordinate special teams.

Additionally, tight ends coach Tony Dews will add the role of recruiting coordinator.

“We always want to ensure our staff is operating at the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness,” Graham said. “Based on our experience this spring, we felt these changes would significantly enhance our teaching and coaching on the defensive side of the ball.”

I have to admit, the distaste that Michigan and WVU fans have expressed for Tony Gibson’s coaching acumen has me a touch nervous. It is along the lines of the way Pitt fans felt about Jeff Hafley’s ability to coach the secondary the previous couple of years. And now he goes from just handling the cornerbacks to the entire secondary and scheming the pass defense? Erp.

According to Paul Zeise at the P-G, this actually took place during spring practice, but no one bothered to make an official announcement.

Here’s the new updated assistant coach structure.

Paul Randolph: executive associate head coach, co-defensive coordinator, defensive line

Calvin Magee: assistant head coach, co-offensive coordinator, running backs

Mike Norvell: co-offensive coordinator, wide receivers, director of recruiting

Keith Patterson: defensive coordinator, linebackers

Tony Gibson: pass defense coordinator, secondary

Tony Dews: tight ends, recruiting coordinator

Todd Dodge: quarterbacks

Spencer Leftwich: offensive line

Randall McCray, outside linebackers, special teams coordinator

Bo Graham, assistant wide receivers coach, head graduate assistant

Yes, that last name on the list is indeed one of Coach Graham’s sons.

The other thing that stands out on that list is that three of the coaches on the defensive side now have coordinator status attached to their title. Randolph, Patterson and Gibson. Have to assume that things have a hierarchy and organization to keep the coaches working together, but it seems potentially awkward.





FWIW, Sal Sunseri is assistant head coach/LB coach at Bama; another guy is associate head coach/ RB coach … and neither are coordinators. They do, however have an OC, DC, special teams coordinator and recruiting coordinator … so what’s in a name?

Again, all that matters is what occurs on the field come Saturdays in September

Comment by wbb 05.10.11 @ 9:10 pm

Here’s a very long winded article on Cignetti moving over to Rutgers that Yahoo/Rivals is featuring on their NCAA Football page.

You’d actually think Rutgers has some sort of pedigreed football program. Shows how articles can be spun by a writer who wants to show a program in the best light possible. This Fox character has done some hit pieces on Pitt.
Go Figure.

I mean does anyone really care about Rugters football, other than Greg Schiano and the people who he pays to coach. (3 former Pitt assistants this year) Cignetti seems to have a about a 2 year life span or less at some of his recent coaching gigs. I’d really love to see Pitt blow this team out like 52-10.

Comment by melvinbennett 05.10.11 @ 9:31 pm

whoops forgot to link it:

link to collegefootball.rivals.com

Comment by melvinbennett 05.10.11 @ 9:32 pm

link to blogs.sites.post-gazette.com

blog about last night’s activities .. plus that Graham has no interest in D Bell

Comment by wbb 05.11.11 @ 7:28 am

Michigan d-backs were young and inexperienced, if you watched WVU secondary the years that Gibson was there you would know that it was one of the best in the country during his time there. Pakman Jones,Angel Estrada, Brian King, Lance Frazier,Anthony Mims, Jahmile Addae, Larry Williams, Dee McCann,Antinio Lewis, Eric Wicks, just to name a few. WVU fans just trash talk him because he left with RichRod. I have been a WVU fan and I wish they would hire him back.

Comment by Big Ed 05.11.11 @ 2:51 pm

[…] us to the pass defense coordinator/secondary coach, Tony Gibson. I’ve previously stated some wariness about Gibson. Gibson to this point has been every bit as bad as he was under Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia and […]


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