In addition to poaching Jim Leavitt--arguably the best defensive coordinator in the Pac-12--from Colorado, Willie Taggart has made some more major hires the past couple days. Alabama assistant coach Mario Cristobal will be hired as Willie Taggart’s offensive coordinator and run game coordinator. Cristobal is Alabama’s assistant head coach and offensive line coach. Cristobal is considered one of the country’s top recruiters, ranking in the top 10 of 247Sports coach rankings two years in a row. Willie Taggart will hire Washington State assistant head coach and defensive line coach Joe Salave’a to the same positions at Oregon. As a coach, Salave’a developed all-conference defensive linemen...and he created a recruiting pipeline between WSU and American Samoa. If the major concerns about the Ducks this past season have been the run game, defense, and recruiting, it seems like these hires have been specifically targeted to address those. I don't think we can necessarily expect them to pay major dividends in the upcoming season, but I don't think it's unreasonable to project a significant uptick in the next couple years.
Here's a couple articles about the recent hires if anyone's interested. http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/1/13/14216106/mario-cristobal-oregon-alabama http://registerguard.com/rg/sports/...wsu-defensive-line-coach-joe-salavea.html.csp
I'll be honest, I was a bit meh when Taggart was hired but damn he has put together an amazing staff. There is a clear focus on nationwide recruiting.
Hey--can you change the thread title to "Oregon poaches Nick Saban's top recruiter"? That headline is much juicier than what I put up there.
Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about what he's been able to accomplish already in such a short time. Now we need to see if the hires actually result in a top-20 recruiting class, as well as if this staff can actually coach as well as it seems they should be able to recruit.
Oh yeah--I certainly wasn't talking about this class, or necessarily even the next one, for which half the work has already been done. I'm thinking we won't really see the fruits of these efforts until February 2019, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Did you read this yet? http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2017/01/how_the_oregon_ducks_football.html
Interesting, total regime change. I hope these guys succeed in breathing new life into the program. The Ducks definitely need the recruiting help. I wonder if former 49ers coach Jim Tomsula would be interested in a college job? He seems like he'd be a good college coach.
He also recruited well to FIU. And the thing is that with all the coaches Alabama has he's the one noted as the top recruiter in the country. Make no mistake, Oregon getting him is a huge coup.
Pretty cool that Wilcox got hired to be Cal's HC. I wonder how much of the Duck's old staff will find jobs there?
