I kind of put this out in a jumble on my Twitter, I'll see if I can organize my thoughts better here.
Something I thought interesting is that if Lujan is indeed the OC, and if Anderson is indeed out at OL, the non-NU P5 coaching experience on staff dwindles down to basically zero.
McGarigle was LB coach at Illinois for a year and QC for Green Bay in the NFL but that's about it on the staff. Smith and Binns both have QC/GA stints but that's a whole other ballgame.
This movement started with Fitz in the Spring of 23 making all five hires from G5 or FCS schools and it's something I think Braun will continue. Since McGarigle is from the NFL, once Anderson is gone and if the hires for TE/ST and OL are made from G5/FCS ranks, there will be ZERO assistants on staff directly from a previous P5 job.
But, before that, Fitz hired almost exclusively laterally in P5 or down from the league. By my count, there were six assistants hired from 2017-22: Ryan Smith, Jim O'Neil, Mike Bajakian, Tim McGarigle, Kurt Anderson and Jeff Genyk. All six had prior P5 or NFL experience the season before taking the job.
I don't necessarily mean this as a critique, I think McGarigle and Smith were both great hires. I just thought it was really interesting to highlight what seems like an inflection point in the program from finding or finding guys at a higher or equal level that either aren't working out or giving them a promotion to drop a level to promoting guys from G5/FCS to take their next step.
Something I thought interesting is that if Lujan is indeed the OC, and if Anderson is indeed out at OL, the non-NU P5 coaching experience on staff dwindles down to basically zero.
McGarigle was LB coach at Illinois for a year and QC for Green Bay in the NFL but that's about it on the staff. Smith and Binns both have QC/GA stints but that's a whole other ballgame.
This movement started with Fitz in the Spring of 23 making all five hires from G5 or FCS schools and it's something I think Braun will continue. Since McGarigle is from the NFL, once Anderson is gone and if the hires for TE/ST and OL are made from G5/FCS ranks, there will be ZERO assistants on staff directly from a previous P5 job.
But, before that, Fitz hired almost exclusively laterally in P5 or down from the league. By my count, there were six assistants hired from 2017-22: Ryan Smith, Jim O'Neil, Mike Bajakian, Tim McGarigle, Kurt Anderson and Jeff Genyk. All six had prior P5 or NFL experience the season before taking the job.
I don't necessarily mean this as a critique, I think McGarigle and Smith were both great hires. I just thought it was really interesting to highlight what seems like an inflection point in the program from finding or finding guys at a higher or equal level that either aren't working out or giving them a promotion to drop a level to promoting guys from G5/FCS to take their next step.
