The names have been floating out there for a couple days. I’m sure many have been getting antsy about Head Coach Pat Narduzzi naming a staff. Especially since during the Armed Forces Bowl, he indicated he hoped to name the assistants and coordinators by about today.
Instead, it was very quiet and no real concrete — or even vaguely sure — info on who would be on the staff. Something that P-G beat writer, Sam Werner addressed in his weekly chat.
Comment From KatPanther13: Has local media lost all of their connections in the Athletic Department/Football team? None of you have any scoops PG, Trib, Local Broadcast News, what’s up man?
Sam Werner: Believe me, I wish I had more information to give you regarding the coaching staff. Not as an excuse, but Pitt’s leadership is in a great state of flux right now. A new chancellor came in August, and they’re in the midst of a transition at athletic director. That means that a lot of people who used to be in the loop aren’t necessarily anymore, and people might be less willing to talk because the future of the athletic department is a little more unsettled.
Pitt has always been very hard to crack when it comes to leaks and movement.
Werner is very right about everything being closed at the moment. It makes sense. With all that upheaval, it is a lot of unknown. Who knows how HCPN feels or reacts to leaks on his staff plans? No one in the athletic department can really know yet. They aren’t going to take a chance on their own job security just to pass a tip along. Especially when there is no AD, and they don’t know who would support them if there was a problem.
It doesn’t take an inside source to assume that the employees in the athletic department are being very cautious at the moment.
Having said that, some names emerged over the prior two names and they have been officially confirmed by Pitt.
Pitt head football coach Pat Narduzzi announced the hiring of three coaches and an operations director to his staff today. The appointments include:
Josh Conklin, defensive coordinator. A 2014 Broyles Award nominee, Conklin led FIU to a top-35 finish in total defense this season.
Andre Powell, running backs coach and special teams coordinator. Powell is a 27-year college coaching veteran, including four stints with ACC schools. He served the past four seasons at Maryland.
Dave Andrews, head strength and conditioning coach. A tight end on Ohio State’s 2002 national championship team, Andrews joins the Panthers after serving on Notre Dame’s football strength staff this past year.
Ben Mathers, director of football operations. An operations assistant for Michigan State in 2014, Mathers will work closely with Pitt’s assistant athletic director for football operations, Chris LaSala.
“My first week at Pitt has been really energizing and I’m especially excited to announce our initial hirings,” Narduzzi said. “In assembling our staff, we are looking for great people and great teachers. Each of these men fit that mold and will be tremendous assets on and off the field. I know they share my enthusiasm and vision for what we can accomplish at the University of Pittsburgh.”
One other name to be expected as part of the defensive staff will be Rob Harley. He was the linebackers coach at FIU under Conklin. He got his start in coaching as a graduate assistant at Michigan State. Harley’s profile has already been pulled from FIU’s athletic pages. His LB unit was mainly freshmen and sophomores but improved noticeably during the season to actually be a strength.
Starting with the DC hire of Conklin. He fits what Narduzzi wants to do on defense: be very, very aggressive.
On several occasions this season observers witnessing the FIU defense for the first time have often referred to it as a “kamikaze” type of unit. The Panthers seem to be playing a wild brand of defense bringing pressure from a variety of areas and leaving their cornerbacks in one-on-one matchups but it only appears that way.
The kamikaze label could be construed in a negative way such as being a risky defensive approach, but a smile comes across FIU defensive coordinator Josh Conklin’s face when told about the label.
“That’s exactly right,” said Conklin about his defense being tagged as kamikaze. “That’s what we want. We want to apply pressure at all times even in our base defense and when I say pressure I’m not saying blitz all the time. We want people to have issues when the ball is turned over and we want teams operating on our terms and not their terms.”
Conklin isn’t a “name” guy since he was working at FIU, but he is very well thought of as a defensive coordinator.
I know a lot of people who think a lot of Josh Conklin. Narduzzi snagging him to be his DC at Pitt could turn out to be a savvy move.
— Travis Haney (@TravHaneyESPN) January 9, 2015
Conklin has been Florida International’s defensive coordinator the past two seasons and is regarded as one of the nation’s brightest young defensive coaches.
His aggressive, disruptive unit ranks fourth this season in the FBS in takeaways (33), 35th in total defense (363.8 yards per game) and 40th in scoring defense (24.8 points per game). Prior to his tenure at FIU, he coached safeties for a season at Tennessee.
He did this at FIU. Sure Conference USA play can help, but still really good stuff. Plus Pitt now has a guy that can be referred to as “Coach Conk.” That just makes me happy for some reason.
For running backs and special teams, well that means John Settle is departing — presumably joining Chryst in Wisconsin — but the Powell hire is really good news for making the special teams a lot better. As for his running back coach pedigree. It has some good names on the list:
Powell owns an impressive list of tailback protégés, including C.J. Spiller at Clemson, Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones at Virginia and former Steeler Willie Parker at North Carolina. Spiller was a unanimous All-American and ACC Player of the Year in 2009 before being a first-round NFL Draft pick of Buffalo. Spiller finished his career with 7,588 all-purpose yards, the second most in FBS history, and tied the NCAA career record with seven kickoff return touchdowns.
Powell is a highly regarded special teams strategist. In ESPN’s 2014 team efficiency rankings, the Terrapins’ special teams were rated No. 11 in the country.
I’m feeling pretty good about the hires so far.
For S&C Coach Dave Andrews, he and Narduzzi go back to the Cinci days. He’s actually got certifications and a legitimate work history in S&C — not simply owning his college football team weightlifting records.
Andrews was an assistant director of strength and conditioning at Notre Dame, which defeated LSU, 31-28, in the 2014 Music City Bowl. He is a registered strength and conditioning coach by the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (CSCCa) and certified by USA Weightlifting (USAW) as a level one sports performance coach.
Prior to Notre Dame, he spent two seasons as the associate football strength and conditioning coach at Illinois (2012-13). From 2005-12, Andrews served in various strength and conditioning capacities at the University of Cincinnati, including his final four years when he was the Bearcats’ head Olympic strength and conditioning coach. Andrews was a graduate assistant football coach at Cincinnati in 2004.
Obviously a lot of the curiosity — even before these hires — revolves around the offensive staff. Since Narduzzi is a defensive coach, the OC and surrounding staff is vital (See, Muschamp, Will, for what happens when you don’t hire well for the other side of the ball from which you came).
What would impress me is a coach that actually recruits a kid at a position and then that coach, coaches him for four years and then that kid gets drafted. I am interested to see who Powell recruited to any college. If there aren’t a bunch of 4 stars, than the coach isn’t a stud recruiter. Coaches moving every couple of years, protects their resume’s on recruiting and coaching them up.
A disclaimer is necessitated for non-power 5 coaches. I don’t expect that an FIU coach would out recruit Miami, FSU and Florida for talent. If they bring in three stars, that is really good. FIU should recruit the same as USF.
Dantonio did not teach his grasshopper everything about being a CEO. He kept a few pebbles. It was easy to keep the MSU coaches. Promote them. Offer them co-DC positions and tell them if they produce, their next step is HC. Go to Pitt and you are starting from scratch with an unproven HC. Oh, and here’s a $400k salary increase to stay too.
As of now, all we know is that he has been hired as the special teams coach, but he’s also been a successful running back coach for many years, almost all of them in the ACC. He’s coming from Maryland, but before that he did stints at Clemson, North Carolina, and Virginia so he’s been in the ACC every year since 1997, except for last season with Maryland. As a running back coach he’s coached CJ Spiller, Thomas Jones, and Tiki Barber, so that’s pretty impressive. As a special teams coach he led Maryland to a No. 6 special teams ranking nationally this past year. He also recruited Maryland’s top return man, as well as star cornerback, Will Likely, who came from recruiting hotbed Belle Glade, FL. To get Likely Powell had to beat out Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, LSU, USC, and Oregon to name just a few. In the last nine years he has landed six 4-star recruits. Besides Likely, that also includes former Clemson star WR DeAndre Hopkins. As a player at Indiana he was the fullback for legendary running back Anthony Thompson. He’s 48-years old.
But as Boeheim says, even with 5-stars, only fifty percent ever become legit players, and hoops star players (Birch)
through AAU play against one another where football players rarely do.
He didn’t get the snaps he wanted or that we fans thought he would and there are always more than one reason for that happening and one reason could be that Ford and others put more effort in. Seven receivers caught more passes than he did and two of those were RBs so his future wasn’t etched in stone here.
One of the reasons I can see why he’s doing this transfer is that his bread and butter are the deep routes and he knows that for the next two years he won’t see them almost at all.
Trouble is that if he does transfer, he’ll sit for a year unless he goes to D2 … yet he seems intent on doing it. Just hope that someone isn’t trying to influence him that he could get a waiver …which isn’t a guarantee
Re: Adonis Jennings’ transfer from #Pitt. The departure of Bobby Engram a year ago had a bigger impact than the departure of Paul Chryst.
I think a copied the link to his original instagram where he explains himself….
Hadn’t really played much to pass judgement on him, he was set to RedShirt, after missing 95% of camp and then most of Sept. (debuted against Akron on 9/27)
Kid said he was alright with being Redshirted when for some unknown reason, Mr Offensive Guru Paulie, decided to burn his redshirt in an offense that ran 70% (66.6)of the time and additionally when they threw a pass, 80% of the time it went to Boyd.
I said back then, it made no sense burning his redshirt and it still makes no sense. Another genius move by Riverboat Paulie.
It’s not like we have a platoon of good WR’s waiting in the wings for when Boyd leaves.
Totally mishandled by the Cheeseheads. Wirginis is another one who could have sat this year. As well as the 150 lb. DB.
Oh has Jennings dropped out of school already ?
Heinz Ward interviewing Nard Dog on channel 11.
nice, more I listen to the guy the more I like him… nice little publicity boast for us right now too…
Sam Werner may actually have to “work” for a story instead of havibg one handed to him.
All very strange.