New Staff...?

We should finally have an official announcement of the assistant coaching staff today and the program can move forward with recruiting and preparing for spring practices, which will be open!  We still have no idea why there has been all this “secrecy” (at least there not been any reports of assistant candidates hiding behind food carts) when we have known for awhile know who six coaches are, all coming from SJSU, and especially when MacIntyre says of recruiting, “It’s just like shaving; you can’t miss a day or it shows.”  They are really only questions about three positions: WR, RB and special teams.  Even with the influx of assistant money, there are no really big, “splash” names out there-hopefully MacIntyre and the Bohnhead are not blowing their whole wad this year. I will update during the day with any new information. Here’s who we have in place as of this morning:

Head Coach: Mike MacIntyre comes in with the experience of reviving the almost dead program at San Jose State.  He is a defensive guy (DC at Duke), mainly a secondary guy, but who has also coached on offense (WRs at Ole Miss when Eli was there), and has been all over the place, so he has a widespread recruiting network.  He is known for his attention to detail, from scheduling to practicing to recruiting information, learned as a son of a coach and from having worked under Bill Parcells.  He plans on blanketing the state of Colorado and having his staff meet every high school coach as they did in California, which he said he considers “in-state” for CU.  A full interview with Woody Paige can be found here: http://online.publicationprinters.com/launch.aspx?eid=d8caf5e2-2006-4858-8839-64e1b2b41159

Here’s what he had to say about his offense:  “When you say pistol, most people think it’s all option. We just line up in the pistol formation, in the gun. But we can run the ball downhill, run the power game, run the inside zone, run counter, run hard play-action pass, use our tight ends and hit deep crossing routes. But also when you’re in the gun, you can get the ball out of your hands quickly, running bubbles, quick screens and spread stuff. We have a very good mixture of being able to hit somebody in the mouth and run downhill, plus being able to do boots, play action and those types of things. It keeps the defense in conflict. And then we’re able to do a lot of the spread concepts that people like to use today, getting it to our receivers in open space and let them make some people miss. I like what we do. I think it also helps our defense get better; they can play against downhill running teams and also spread stuff. Overall, it helps our whole football team.”  MacIntyre said that he plans on taking advantage of the altitude in Boulder with an offense that can wear the defense down, but that can also put it into “Indy” speed and pick up the pace with some hurry-up.

Here is a little about the members of the new staff that we know, all six of whom are following him from San Jose State, and all of whom except Baer were on campus yesterday, touring facilities, going over recruiting rules and plans, to hit the road Friday.  Baer will supposedly arrive shortly.  We'll see if we find out who the other three are later today.

Offense Coordinator (QBs?): Brian Lindgren, comes from SJSU and will install some version of the Pistol offense, likely with an emphasis on the run game.  He is one of the “hot” young offensive minds and is known for using various formations, personnel groupings and pre-snap shifts to keep defenses on their toes.

There is some talk that Rip Scherer could be staying on as QB coach, but I just don’t see the point of keeping with after last year’s QBs were awful and Lindgren has usually dealt with his QBs himself.

Offensive Line: Gary Bernardi, also from SJSU, but has been all over the place including Arizona, USC and UCLA. He is a well-known recruiter and has coached many guys who went on to NFL careers.  He has also coached TEs and WRs in the past.  (Another note: his daughter is married to Andy LaRussa).

TEs: Klayton Adams, one year at SJSU, previously from Sacramento State and Boise State. Very young, not a ton to tell about him.

WR coach is the subject of much uncertainty and debate. While many would love to see Duke’s Matt Lubick, who seems too big to lure without a coordinator job, or to retain Bobby Kennedy (sounds like he is gone), I think we would have heard something more concrete if anyone of note were indeed lined up.

RB: As opposed to WR, this is the position that has been least talked about, and I have no idea about who it could end up being, but pleeeeease, again, don’t bother mentioning EB.  Kyle Ringo said he heard MacIntyre was looking outside either program for an RB coach.

Defensive Coordinator (LBs?): Kent Baer definitely has experience, having been the DC at Notre Dame (also 1-0 as interim coach), Washington, Stanford, ASU, Cal, Idaho, and Utah State.  He has generally run an aggressive, blitzing 4-3 defense and has often also coached linebackers.  He has sent numerous players to the NFL.

Defensive Line: Jim Jeffcoat was previously at the University of Houston as well as the Dallas Cowboys, before SJSU.  He is probably going to be one of the main recruiting guys, especially in Texas.

Secondary: Charles Clark, coming from SJSU, previously Duke.  Also very young, shared DB responsibilities last year with LaRussa.

Andy LaRussa seems to also have been hired but it is unclear what his responsibilities will be; he was in charge of corners and ST at SJSU, and was previously from Northern Arizona and UNLV (where he coached all over the defense, as well as with Bernardi and met his daughter).  He would also at least help, if not lead Special Teams.

Strength and Conditioning: Dave Forman?  He came to SJSU from Stanford two years ago and transformed their program, but it is unclear yet if he is also following MacIntyre here.

Director of Football Operations: Brian McGinnis also appears to be coming to Boulder from San Jose.

Darian Hagan apparently will stay on, possibly as Director of Player Development.

They will still hire a non-coach “Director of Recruiting”.

Other Program Notes

Brian Cabral will officially retire from CU (even though he has been out of his office for a few weeks), although he could still end up coaching elsewhere.  He coached linebackers under five head coaches and was assistant or associate head coach for many of his 23 years (after an NFL career that followed his time as a CU player), sending numerous players to the NFL.

The Bohnhead said of Butch Jones, who backed out of a handshake deal and rode off to Tennessee, “In retrospect, Jones probably did us a favor…In coach speak, he didn’t have the stones to come to Boulder.” Hindsight is 20/20, but great sense of judgment by the Bohnhead after he spent an entire day with Jones, begging him to come to Boulder and offering him the world (most of which he ended up giving MacIntyre).

We should finally start hearing some more about recruiting prospects and visits soon!  There could even be some this weekend.

Go Buffs!