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2 new hires reported by SI's Thayer Evans.

-Matt Brock (fmr QC guy at TTech) will be the special teams coordinator and a "defensive assistant" ... At Tech, he worked with inside LBs

-Benny Morrison (fmr GA at USF) will be the new LBs coach. He worked with Coach Eliano at UTSA in the past.

From my record keeping staff SHOULD look like-

OC/QB- Padron
OC/WR (inside)- Kilmer
WR (outside)- Sowder
OL- Hamby

DC/S- Eliano
DC/DL- White
LB- Morrison
CB- Mickens
ST/Def Asst- Brock

There does not appear to be a specific RB coach but that's what Coach Jinks did at TTech and it can also be handled by support staff or a GA.

Unusual set-up with no running backs coach from the NCAA allowed 9-man staff.

We had 4 GA's last year. Vincent Marshall coached the running backs and has already changed his Twitter profile to Syracuse. Jeff Lepak was the other on the offensive side and has not changed his profile and reportedly played a key role in the recruitment of our early enrollee TE/FB. He played TE in the offense under Babers and coaches the TE position, which may or may not still exist in this offense. Former Texas Tech QB Seth Doege is on board as an offensive GA and was assumed to be working with the QB's although the running back vacancy might change things. On defense DL coach Ben Olson appears to be staying based on his Twitter activity. The other GA was John Pike, who has not changed his Twitter profile but is tied closely to Ward. Eddie Benavidez is coming over with Coach Eliano from UTSA as a GA on the defensive side, so either Pike is leaving or we're adding staff.

By my count we also need an assistant strength and conditioning coach.

Any Ohioans in the bunch?

Does it matter?

Schadenfreude wrote:Any Ohioans in the bunch?

Does it matter?

Don't know, but yes, it matters. Having people on staff who know the state for recruiting and, more importantly, some of the coaches, helps create in-roads to good players. Coming totally from the outside would be quite difficult to do. Coaches are a funny lot; if they don't know you, you're more than likely going to have to prove you are a good coach and have the players' best interests at heart. It's not the only way to successful recruiting -- but if you mess up and get on the bad side of some Ohio coaches, word spreads, and other coaches use it negatively against you.

As of 1/8 there were no confirmed BG speakers for the OHSFCA clinic. The only head coach from the MAC confirmed was Jason Candle from TSUN.

These next couple classes will test how good our recruiting is. For as much as I dislike the antics of PJ Fleck I have to admire his sheer relentlessness on Twitter, something that applies to his staff as well. There are multiple things up there daily reaching out to recruits and highlighting things they've done and/or accomplishments of their program. We've gotten better with graphics and the WeAreBG multimedia productions are superb, but overall haven't come close to matching the volume of activity a place like WMU generates. If they finish with the #1 class again we'll know at least partly why. There's a difference between simply using the medium and using the medium to generate a distinct competitive advantage.