Sunday, February 15, 2009

Hard Reset | by Jay

Remember that board game -- I think it was called Boggle -- where you press the plastic bubble, and all the letters pop up and get rearranged? I felt a little bit like that on Friday, like someone had pressed the bubble on the Irish football program, and all the pieces went flying up in the air, settling down into a new and unfamiliar pattern.

A tremendous amount of news was just dumped upon us, and I'm still trying to sort it all out. Wade on in; here's a link to all the presser videos from Friday to get you started, with plenty more coverage at all your local Irish media outlets. We'll pull out a few quotes, title changes, and responsibility re-orgs to talk about in greater depth this week, but let's see if I can summarize the entire offseason shakeup to date:

  • Haywood left to take the job at Miami-Ohio.
  • Alford hired at RB (after negotiating with one or two others).
  • Latina fired.
  • Verducci hired at OL (after negotiating with Ron Prince for the job).
  • Oliver fired.
  • Defensive line coaches interviewed: dallied with Fickell, Stripling & Crennel for DL -- coach officially still TBD, but it looks like it's Randy Hart, recently let go from UW.
  • Titles shuffled on defense: Corwin "promoted" to Assoc. HC (while retaining co-DC title), Tenuta to DC.
  • Tenuta to call the plays on defense.
  • Polian relegated to ST only.
  • Ianello granted new title (and presumably new responsibilities).
  • Bryant Young hired as defensive GA.
  • Brian White hired as offensive GA.
  • Verducci added "run game coordinator" to his job title.
  • Did not pursue an offensive coordinator -- Charlie named himself as such.
  • Charlie announced he might call plays from the booth.
Whew. The only guys left untouched were Powlus and Parmalee. Did I miss anything?