RichRod getting the band back together in Tucson?
Arizona: We hear Pitt's tight ends / recruiting coordinator Tony Dews, co-offensive coordinator / running backs coach Calvin Magee and secondary coach Tony Gibson are all locked in to join Rich Rod in Arizona. All three with with Rich at Michigan.
Arizona: We hear a number of assistants will join the staff this week and will begin to assemble in Tucson. We have been told to look for Jeff Casteel to be one of the first announced.
http://www.footballscoop.com/the-scoop
EDIT: Magee, Dews, and Gibson photos and bios have been removed from Pitt football website
December 4th, 2011 at 4:31 PM ^
December 4th, 2011 at 12:02 PM ^
Who's going to be the next Chuck Cecil?
December 4th, 2011 at 12:06 PM ^
for Arizona's secondary.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:11 PM ^
Will Vinopal follow?
December 4th, 2011 at 12:22 PM ^
Is it too late for Tate to transfer to Zona? Might as well reunite with RR.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
Why would Casteel follow Rich to Arizona of all places and not Michigan? This makes no sense to me.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:14 PM ^
Wasn't it because we didn't fork out the cash to get casteel?
December 4th, 2011 at 12:25 PM ^
West Virginia paid him $10,000 per year more than we offered, so I don't think money was the main consideration. At WVU he had a contract and job security with Stewie as HC, not to mention he likes living in WV. He now has a lot less job security with Holgerson.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:27 PM ^
Yeah, I think WVU offered him $280,000 and a contract to beat our offer of $270,000 and no contract. Bill Martin was cheap when it came to coaches' salaries (in fairness, Rodriguez probably could have gotten a better offer for Casteel if he had pushed the issue).
December 4th, 2011 at 12:37 PM ^
I'm waiting to see if he's learned anything about putting together a defensive staff—has he done any homework on identifying potential DCs who've employed the 3-3-5 if Casteel can't or won't come to Tucson?
The inclusion of Gibson is not reassuring, family ties with the Gibsons notwithstanding.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
I'm not making any pronouncements one way or another. I'm not a football coach; I have no idea how good or bad Gibson is.
From what I saw of Gibson's Pitt defensive backfield this year, they didn't look badly-coached.
And from Three and Out, I had not previously realized how Tony Gibson rescued the recruitment of Denard Robinson when Scott Schafer nearly wrecked it by talking to Denard about coming to Michigan as a d-back.
December 5th, 2011 at 7:13 PM ^
You may just want to compare Pitt's 2010 defensive stats with their 2011 stats....you'll see that Gibson did what Gibson does - lower a team's defensive ability significantly.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:05 PM ^
Jay Hopson is available and he ran the 3-3-5 at Memphis.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:50 PM ^
December 4th, 2011 at 1:56 PM ^
If there was ever a post that I didn't think needed a /s tag, that was it.
December 4th, 2011 at 4:28 PM ^
He's run the 3-3-5. And as a bonus, Arizona would get to see the stellar coif and the stuffed animal.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:21 PM ^
Maybe because Casteel is about to be fired at WVU, while four years ago he thought he was in line for the head coaching job there?
December 4th, 2011 at 12:38 PM ^
Mattison at the end of the 2010 season.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:33 PM ^
(Enter..... Section 1)
December 4th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
because we's bringing back the whole crew (+Casteel) that just bombed out at Michigan and he wants to schedule Michigan in the future. Seems like he really wants to tell America "SEE. I wasn't the problem"
December 4th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
So NOW Casteel will follow RR .... grrrrrr
December 4th, 2011 at 12:36 PM ^
...is that with a proper contract offer, and some reasonable assurance that Rodriguez would have been allowed proper time to get his program in place, Casteel would have come to Michigan in 2010.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:17 PM ^
in which Casteel comes to Ann Arbor with RR. We go 6-6 in 2008, 8-4 in 2009, and 10-2 in 2010.
Which means in turn that Bill Martin or David Brandon summon the backbone to publicly call out Michael Rosenberg and Mark Snyder for the lying, duplicitous turds that they are, and the Free Press for enabling them.
Back to reality, though: Hoke and staff have done a tremendous job this year, and the future looks extremely bright. I'll root for RR in every game he coaches at Arizona, unless we ever play them.
December 4th, 2011 at 2:25 PM ^
Just remember, Don, way back when some of us were talking about the Athletic Department's failure to bring in Casteel, others were suggesting that perhaps we were wrong, and instead suggested that the basic reason that Casteel was not coming to Michigan was because of some basic underlying antipathy between Rodriguez and Casteel.
I never accepted that baseless assertion, and I had suggested that there was no proof, and plenty of proof that Casteel's decision to remain in WVU was based on other things. Later on, Three and Out supported me, but if indeed Jeff Casteel joins the Rodriguez staff in Arizona, it largely ends that particular argument.
December 4th, 2011 at 3:09 PM ^
Given the length of Casteel's tenure in Morgantown, he would have been justified in thinking he'd get a good look as the successor to Stewart, assuming he harbors a goal to be a HC. Holgerson's hiring certainly put that hope in the crapper. I can understand Casteel's reluctance to move his family to A2 without a multi-year contract, too.
I'll be interested to see if RR brings in any assistants with past experience in coaching and recruiting in AZ/CA/TX. When Meyer went to Florida in 2005, none of his assistants except one had any direct experience in Florida or the deep south, but that one was crucial: DC Charlie Strong, who had been with the Gators since 2002 under Zook, with two previous stops in Gainesville before that.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:15 PM ^
forces many to re-think their options and move on to other things. It happened with Bo and RR. Despite the talent that left when RR came (thanks in large part to LC) he would not have succeeded here without a rock solid defense and DC. An offense that scores or turns the ball over so quickly puts a lot of pressure on the defense, whethere it's MIchigan, Oregon or Houston. If the defense is on the field 2/3 to 3/4 of the time, they have to either be in great shape or be very good on third down. Without a great and strong minded DC RR's scheme will fail anywhere.
Look at Kelly at ND, without a strong D, he loses to teams he should beat, even without all the TOs. Oregon struggles against teams that he can't stop because the true spread offense relies on the number of drives to win, not TOP. Craig James made a great point yesterday during the Houston game, With Houston probably getting about 5-6 more possessions before the game was over, Southern Miss needed every point it could get to have a chance to win. Houston played its worst game of the year and the game wasn't even close yet Keenum still threw for 373. If his receivers don't drop every other pass Houston probably wins that game.
A fast-scoring spread offense needs a well-conditioned defense and RRs teams need a strong-minded DC that will run the system they run and no allow the HC to change things.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:14 PM ^
Mallet? - I think that's a hard argument to make, he might have left even if Loyd stayed
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<br>Boren - If RR wanted Zach, he probably stays
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<br>Mitchell - wasn't that an injury thing
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<br>Manningham/Arrington - provably ready to go no matter what
December 4th, 2011 at 1:54 PM ^
quit before Carr and coaches convinced him to stick with football until the season is over. He was gone no matter what.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:18 PM ^
according to Three and Out, but when they named Stewart the HC at WVU he decided to stay according to Bacon. $$ was probably involved but if the AD would spend $1M on the weight room, couldn't they get a few $$ for a good DC?
Is bArwis coming too? That would be awesome. Zona will become my second favorite team instantly if Casteel and Barwis go too.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^
Can somebody please explain to me the whole Barwis thing? Why is he such a big deal? I haven't read Three And Out and I've only been following Michigan a lot since Denard Robinson blew up last year. What's special about Barwis?
December 4th, 2011 at 2:14 PM ^
He's an interesting guy, for one. Also IMO Michigan's S&C was outdated when he came in. The players themselves stated how much better shape they were in after he arrived.
Didn't help of course if you have a tire fire for a defensive coaching staff, but IMO that is a seperate issue.
Edit: Also the previous coach, Gittleson famously told a player to eat a whole pizza every night in order to gain weight. Yeah, ok, you'll gain weight doing that but I don't think it'll be the kind of weight you want to put on....
December 4th, 2011 at 2:51 PM ^
Kinda irrelevant what you eat when you're a world class athlete. Forget which Olympic swimmer ate lunch at mcdonalds every day
December 4th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^
He had decided to come; the book mentions that he had been issued a Michigan cell phone and was all set to come to Ann Arbor. He changed his mind when Stewart was given the job permanently and WVU upped its offer.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:27 PM ^
That secondary will suck forever. The rest of the crew not terrible...but always depends on the DC, doesn't it?
December 4th, 2011 at 12:31 PM ^
RichRod's success in the Pac12 will depend on how well his defenses can cope with USC and Oregon. He will need the best defenses he's ever had. It will also behoove him to pay much more attention to special teams than he ever seemed to in AA. We will see.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:33 PM ^
Who knows, maybe Casteel has some kind of magic formula to make Gibson a good coach. I wish RR had found a way to get Casteel here...all history now and we are likely in a BCS bowl, so whatever. Not going to worry about Arizona.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:57 PM ^
Sorry to hijack he thread but I was on that site yesterday that the OP linked and found another interesting tidbit. It listed the names that Tulane are talking to for their head job and it said one was an unnamed Big 10 OC. Anyone know who it is?
December 4th, 2011 at 1:09 PM ^
I wonder if anything gets more clicks on the blog than a thread including the letters "RR"? He's almost like Mgoblog's "Lindsay Lohan naked" equivalent.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:39 PM ^
It starts with a post about basic news concerning Rodriguez's assembling a staff (including a lot of former Michigan assistants) in Arizona. That could easily be a short thread.
But some people can't restrain themselves. So naturally, what we get are the "RichRod failed" posts. And the "Brady Hoke is great RAAUUUWWWW!" posts. And then, the replies that such posts deserve. And so on...
December 4th, 2011 at 1:46 PM ^
dahblue (especially) and Section 1 (to a lesser extent), thanks -- you just made my ironometer redline.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:56 PM ^
Well, that is one of the fundamental characteristics of the internet... which is simultaneously its biggest blessing and its biggest curse.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:15 PM ^
Pitt fans should be celebrating now that they're getting rid of Gibson.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:25 PM ^
Im pretty sure Barwis is heading out west too now.
December 4th, 2011 at 2:08 PM ^
Not a done deal. He had a sweet gig working for private clients in Plymouth.
December 4th, 2011 at 1:39 PM ^
I bet Ray Vinpol and Cullen Christian are glad the transferred to Pitt now.... Guess they didn't understand "those who stay will be champions" lol losers
December 4th, 2011 at 2:34 PM ^
Really classy post.
December 4th, 2011 at 3:10 PM ^
K? Thanks.
December 4th, 2011 at 4:34 PM ^
be new here.
Wow. I bet you have tons of friends and admirers in real life.