Although official announcements were not expected to be made until later this week, on Saturday the school announced that former Syracuse defensive coordinator Steve Russ will be joining the Wake Forest football staff for 2008.

According to Sporting News he will take over the responsibilities of tight ends/fullbacks coach, although the school has not officially made that announcement so for now I will consider that only a rumor, even if it's a pretty good one.

The other coaching hire is expected to be Brian Knorr, current Assistant Head Coach/Co-Def. Coord/ILBs at Air Force. He coached with Grobe at Ohio and replaced him as head coach there when Grobe left.

The exciting thing about these two guys is that they are both coaches with plenty of experience taking significant demotions to join the Wake Forest football coaching staff. In the past that type thing never happened. It's great to see that other coaches are willing to take other jobs in order to be a part of Grobe's staff here at Wake. I expect that with these new coaches in place there will be little disruption to the continuity of things.

There should be an official announcement of Knorr and possibly even a press conference later this week. I expect there to be more information then.

Read More...

Last night I got to talk to cornerback Alphonso Smith for a few minutes about Dean Hood and the coaching changes. It was an impromptu conversation, so I'm just going to paraphrase what Phonz said:

Hood leaving has been hard on the team and on Alphonso personally. He has talked to coach Hood several times and definitely would like him to still be around. Nonetheless, he understands why he took the job (family reasons, mostly) and wishes him all the best.

According to Alphonso, Hood and Lambert are/were the two best coaches on the staff, so with Lambert filling the role of DC he doesn't expect there to be any drop off. Alphonso is confident next season's defense will be the best in Wake Forest history.

It was great to hear how close the team and the coaches are and that they have formed such strong relationships. Also, there is clearly no ill will between players and coaches who have moved on. We have a strong staff and they are ready to fill in the holes and not skip a beat. As far as coaches are concerned there should be nothing to worry about for next season.

Read More...

In an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal coach Grobe talks about this week's coaching changes.

As was posted earlier in the week, defensive coordinator Dean Hood left to take the head coaching job at Eastern Kentucky, and QB coach Jeff Mullens took the offensive coordinator job at West Virgnia.

You can read Dan Collins' article to see what Grobe had to say about the situation (not surprisingly all good things) but the more interesting part is where he plans to go with the staff from here.

Considering the way Grobe goes about most things it isn't surprising that he's planning to promote from within to fill these two vacancies. Linebackers coach Brad Lambert is expected to be promoted to Defensive Coordinator, and former Wake QB and current fullbacks/tight ends coach Tom Elrod will become QB coach.

I think this is what most people expected to see happen, and now Grobe will go out and hire a couple of coaches to fill the rolls of those promoted. I'll keep you posted when those hires are made, although Grobe has said not to expect them until mid February after Signing Day.

Read More...