Two years later than expected, Marcus Lattimore is coming home again.
The State newspaper confirmed Thursday that Lattimore will join Will Muschamp‘s football staff as South Carolina’s director of player development. The paper writes that “Lattimore’s job duties include focusing on off-the-field activities of the student-athletes and serving as an important resource in balancing the demands of academics, athletics, community outreach, and their personal lives as they transition in and out of college athletics.”
Just how this will happen given what kept Lattimore from joining the program in April of 2016 is unclear.
The former USC great was offered a paid position to be on Muschamp’s football staff in a non-coaching capacity, one that he was ready to accept after he graduated from the school in May of 2016. Lattimore also wanted to continue working youth football camps across the state as part of his Marcus Lattimore Foundation.
Unfortunately for Lattimore, the NCAA ruled that continuing to run those camps and being a paid employee of USC football would be an unfair recruiting advantage. Thus, Lattimore had a choice to make: either the job or the camps; Lattimore chose the latter.
“The NCAA ruling is fair and I will fully comply,” Lattimore said in a statement at the time.
One of the most popular players in Gamecocks history, Lattimore tore an ACL and missed the second half of the 2011 season before missing the last three games of 2012 after dislocating his kneecap and tearing several ligaments in his knee in a game against Tennessee. The running back declared early for the 2013 NFL draft, but, after being selected in the fourth round by the San Francisco 49ers, the injuries prevented him from playing a down.
In November of 2016, Lattimore was named as the head football coach at a Columbia high school.
Exactly 46 days after taking over at Florida, Dan Mullen has officially completed his first Gators coaching staff.
The football program announced Thursday morning that Mullen has hired Ron English as his safeties coach. English, whose tenure as head coach at Eastern Michigan ended in controversy in Nov. of 2013, spent the 2017 season in the same role for Mullen at Mississippi State.
English was the defensive coordinator at San Jose State in 2016, his first coaching job in nearly three years following the controversial departure from EMU. Prior to his five-year stint at EMU, English was the defensive coordinator at Louisville (2008) and Michigan (2006-07).
With English onboard, Mullen has finalized the titles for all 10 of his UF assistants:
- Todd Grantham — Defensive Coordinator
- Billy Gonzales — Co-Offensive Coordinator, Wide Receivers
- John Hevesy — Co-Offensive Coordinator, Offensive Line
- Brian Johnson — Quarterbacks
- Greg Knox — Running Backs, Special Teams Coordinator
- Ja’Juan Seider — Tight Ends
- Sal Sunseri — Defensive Line
- Christian Robinson — Linebackers
- Charlton Warren — Cornerbacks
- Ron English — Safeties
It’s been quite the last week or so for Derrick Ansley. And one Mountain West school, for that matter.
Monday morning, reports surfaced that the defensive backs coach had accepted the defensive coordinator job at Colorado State. Later that night, Ansley celebrated the Crimson Tide’s national championship win.
Three days later, and prior to CSU even making an official announcement of a hiring, the now-former Rams coordinator is moving again, with FootballScoop.com reporting that the 36-year-old Ansley has accepted an unspecified position with the Oakland Raiders. ESPN.com subsequently confirmed the move.
Ansley was set to replace Marty English, who retired following the 2017 season. To where Mike Bobo turns now remains to be seen.
Wishful thinking or cross another name off of one Pac-12’s coaching search to-do list?
As Arizona continues searching for Rich Rodriguez‘s replacement, several names have been connected to the opening, most notably former Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin. Overnight, yet another name emerged: Western Kentucky’s Mike Sanford.
Sanford just completed his first season at WKU, guiding the Hilltoppers to a 6-7 record that included a Cure Bowl loss to Arkansas State. The 35-year-old former Notre Dame offensive coordinator has ties to the Wildcats’ conference, spending 2011-13 on the coaching staff at Stanford.
Not long after the initial report emerged connecting Sanford to the job, however, the head coach’s boss has come out and publicly proclaimed that “there is no truth” to the speculation.
Former UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel and current Troy head coach Neal Brown have also been mentioned as possibilities. According to the Arizona Daily Star, those two are likely out as candidates or, in the case of Neuheisel, never really were candidates. Another, former Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich, is expected to take a job with the NFL”s Chicago Bears.
Sumlin remains the favorite to ultimately land the job, provided the two sides can come to an agreement financially.
This might cause a bit of a stir. Or kerfluffle, if you will.
Prior to Monday night’s College Football Playoff championship game, Tua Tagovailoa had seen as much meaningful action this season as I had — none. Then, with Alabama trailing Georgia 13-0 at halftime, Nick Saban yanked starter Jalen Hurts in favor of Tagovailoa and the rest is history, with the true freshman quarterback leading a second-half comeback that culminated in an overtime win punctuated by Tagovailoa’s walk-off, title-winning touchdown pass.
Tagovailoa’s beyond-his-years play was a stunning revelation for most of the country, already leading to speculation that the job is the freshman’s moving forward and Hurts, 27-2 as the starter, could be headed out of Tuscaloosa as a transfer. One who was not stunned by Tagovailoa’s primetime revelation was Scott Frost; so much so, in fact, that the Nebraska head coach — and former head coach of the “other” 2017 national champions — took a swipe Saban and his coaching staff for failing to realize earlier in the season that Tagovailoa was the better option at quarterback.
“It was a decision I don’t know I would have been courageous enough to make. That’s the answer you want to hear,” Frost told ESPN.com prior to winning the Bear Bryant Award Wednesday night.
“The other answer is that [Tagovailoa] was pretty obviously better and they had 12 games to figure that out and didn’t. Coach Saban is above criticism with everything he’s accomplished, so I don’t mean it that way, but I recruited Tua out of high school and knew what he could do and it doesn’t surprise me that he did what he did. Jalen’s a great player, too. That was a very bold and courageous move and I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier [in the season].”
Damn with faint praise much?
Frost, as he noted, has a connection to Tagovailoa, one that could cause some to question the coach’s own judgment and evaluation skills when it comes to the phenom.
Tagovailoa grew up idolizing fellow Hawaiian Marcus Mariota and desperately wanted to follow in the Heisman Trophy winner’s footsteps at Oregon. During Tagovailoa’s recruitment as a high school a freshman and then sophomore in 2013/2014, Frost, as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, was part of Mark Helfrich‘s staff at Oregon that failed to offer the prospect a scholarship despite said prospect practically begging for one.
“It wasn’t until approximately 18 months later — after Oregon secured and then lost the commitment of four-star quarterback Ryan Kelley and Tagovailoa committed to Alabama — that Frost and Oregon coach Mark Helfrich deemed Tagovailoa worthy of a scholarship,” the Oregonian wrote, adding, “12-game season vs. 18 months? Saban has Frost beat by a full calendar year in the ‘recognizing Tagovailoa’s talent’ game.”
[Insert Kelso burn GIF here]
It should be noted that Frost left UO on Dec. 1 of 2015 to take the head-coaching job at UCF; the Ducks finally offered Tagovailoa on June 11, 2016, one month after he had committed to the Crimson Tide. Alabama had offered Tagovailoa a scholarship in March of 2016.
And Helfrich? He was fired a little over five months after offering Tagovailoa and less than a year after Saban won his fifth national championship. Saban, of course, won his record-tying sixth title earlier this week, thanks in large part to Tagovailoa ‘s heroics.
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