UVa made it official with eight assistant coaches yesterday. Six members of Bronco’s BYU staff (Robert Anae, Mark Atuaia, Jason Beck, Garret Tujague, Nick Howell, and Kelly Poppinga) were brought along, Biscuit was retained, and former ECU head coach Ruffin McNeill was the final addition. Let’s meet these guys.
Ruffin McNeill is my favorite addition, and not just because I’m an ECU graduate. With our new head coach an introverted process-oriented type, McNeill’s personable nature will be the perfect compliment as assistant head coach. He was lauded by everyone associated with the Pirate program for his connection with and care for his players, and the uproar surrounding his departure says a lot about the impact he had in Greenville. McNeill will also be coaching the inside linebackers, which sounds like a role was created just to get him on staff. I’m OK with that. He’s coached all over the defense in his career, from serving as the graduate assistant in charge of linebackers at Clemson in the 80’s to being the Defensive Coordinator at Texas Tech. I think McNeill will be a major boon to our recruiting efforts and administration-player relations.
Retaining Biscuit is a big deal, too. Hagans has done a great job with our receivers in his three years as a full time assistant, and has ingrained himself as a key part of our recruiting efforts. Keeping him provides Bronco with a link to our past recruiting successes and someone who is familiar with the University culture as a player and coach.
Robert Anae was BYU’s offensive coordinator from 2005 to 2010 and 2013-2015. The Cougars finished in the top 50 nationally in total offense in each of the three seasons since his return, and Taysom Hill and Jamaal Williams blossomed into stars under his tutelage. Anae was steeped in the Air Raid of Texas Tech, but has shown the ability to adapt his offense to the personnel at hand. A dual-threat guy like Smoke should be pretty excited about this.
Running backs coach Mark Atuaia held the same role at BYU from 2013-2015. He was a thousand yard rusher over the course of his career at BYU (1991-94) and later was involved in Student Life at BYU before joining the football staff. He’s relatively young and fiery (for better or worse).
When Jason Beck was first announced, I thought he was former Dolphins and Redskins QB John Beck, who went to BYU. This Beck backed up John Beck on the quarterback depth chart at BYU, and did post-grad work interning under Bronco at BYU, Les Miles at LSU, and as the offensive coordinator at tiny Simon Fraser, where he turned their offense from the worst in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference into the league’s No. 1 offense in total offense, passing offense and scoring offense. This year, he helped freshman Tanner Mangum set the world on fire after Taysom Hill got hurt.
Garrett Tujague has an amazing jawline, like something you’d see on a cartoon football coach. Tujague’s lines finished 115th, 105th, and 82nd in the country in sacks allowed over the last three seasons, but the Cougars ran an uptempo offensive system that saw them run more plays than most anyone else, too. It’s not as bad as it looks.
Nick Howell has been full time on BYU’s defensive staff since 2010, and helped Mendenhall mastermind some solid defenses. He’ll lord over the five man secondary in what’s expected to become a 30-stack (3-3-5) defense. The Cougars finished in the top-25 in opponents’ passer efficiency rating in each of the last five seasons.
Kelly Poppinga will be our special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach. Poppinga joins Howell and McNeill in having special teams experience, so hopefully their powers combined mean that we’ll be better off than we ever were under Larry Lewis. It shouldn’t be hard.
We’ve still got room for one more coach (defensive line, presumably), assuming all four graduate assistants stay on. The names I’ve heard are Chad Wilt (late of Maryland) and Chris Slade (you know who Chris Slade is), but those are just conjecture at this point.
