How big a deal was the US National team?

I mean, it's an honor that Hawk got chosen to coach it and it is an international event and everything... but it's not really a huge deal (at least in my opinion).

Now Hawk just needs to land his OC/O-line coach from US National team and wenare all set. I'd take Helfrich and his $11MM as a backup though!

I've never heard of it. Honestly, I'm not sure how much of an honor it really is either. So, he's out of coaching 5 years, and that's the guy they pick...yeah, not sure it's really relevant on his resume. We need an OC in here asap...did I miss something...we hire one yet?

Nothing official...Is Wolff a high octane Offensive mind, or more of a CEO?

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Really? C'mon man. Yes, of course it is still an honor even though it may not be the biggest or most advertised of tournaments. It's still an opportunity for him to represent our country at an international event. They could have picked any coach for the job and Hawk got it. I'm not sure why we're trying to downplay an accomplishment. Did any of our other coaches ever coach an event like this?

As far as I know we have not hired an OC, unless the rumor of Speckman handling those responsibilities is true... but that is just a rumor. Speckman's updated twitter profile just lists assistant head coach and RB coach which lines up with what the press releases about his hiring were saying. I agree that this should be a top priority right now.

Better to get it right, versus haste.

Depends on what you think is an honor I suppose. Never heard of the IFAF, or any national team for football. I'm not trying to downplay anything, but I'm saying it's not like we hired "the national team's" coach (i.e. Coach K). I'm sure Hawkins knows it wasn't worth mentioning...shoot, the USA has only played three times in 9 years. I know more than a few who participated in exhibitions of American football abroad...it's really who is willing to go play/coach a few games for a free trip.

As for Speckman, I heard from a pretty good source (a guy who coached against him in JUCO), that he is not going to be the OC. At this point, I'm wondering what's taking so long to find the OC. Are candidates saying no?

I too, wonder why we haven't found an OC yet or at least one that we know of... and at this point if we do have one I don't know why it hasn't been announced. Seems kind of weird to move onto hiring positional assistants when the top dogs haven't been taken care of yet. As others have mentioned, and it would fall into line of Hawk trying to reassemble coaching staffs from the past, I wonder if he is in the process of trying to get Wulff on board from Sac? I don't know though...

I think we need to have the OC in place asap so we can recruit the right fits for his offense. Maybe Hawk will mandate what he wants run, so it won't matter, but I think it matters to recruits.

Wholeheartedly agree. This should be on the top of his checklist. I'm assuming that Hawk has some sort of vision for the offense (and the team in general) and is going for guys that will help make that vision happen, as opposed to hiring guys that will come up with a plan on their own. That way Hawk can still, at this point in time, go after recruits he thinks will mesh well with whatever coordinator he does hire. I think we are also going to be aided this year by going after JUCO and transfer guys, I know we have a handful of offers out to some of them and there is quite a bit of activity on twitter between them and the staff. There is also one guy who is committed to an FBS school that I think we have a chance of flipping (I wouldn't get hopes up, but I think it's a possibility).

Perhaps the guy we want for OC is still with a team that is currently (or very recently) playing.

That could be, but who is still coaching this season who has connections to Hawk in the past? I use that as a standard as all of the other coaches that he has hired have seemed to have worked with him before.

Looks like Coach Jackson will be coaching inside linebackers (from article), while Coach Brady will be coaching outside linebackers (from twitter). I assume this means that Coach Haines, who coached linebackers as a whole, was let go. How common is it to have different coaches for OLB and ILB?

http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/122016aac.html

Haines was tweeting about the team a few days ago...

I hope the coaches can read through our collective bluster - at times - and realize we just want to be competitive again, want to win, and want to do it with Aggie Pride. Go Ags!

Yeah I know. I mean, I'm just assuming that he has been let go if the two new guys are covering the linebackers. Unless he is getting moved to a different position, I think it's likely that he won't be back.

Gentlemen, I found this great summary of the 2015 IFAF world championships (see link below). Apparently, it was set originally for 12 teams, yet only 7 played. But hey, USA won the tourney and we laid the wood to France 82-0 in front of 500 screaming fans... USA! USA! USA! Kidding aside, this doesn't diminish my enthusiasm for our staff in any way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_IFAF_World_Championship

Dan Hawkins now has two twitter accounts? .. or a pretender?

https://twitter.com/CoachHawkinsUCD

https://twitter.com/coachhawk?lang=en

Does anybody know last years assistants,
who are definitely "OUT"
&
those who are definitely "IN"
with Coach Hawk's staff?

Confirmed OUT:
- Coach Daft
- Coach Watts
- Coach Chapin

Speculated OUT:
- Coach Haines

Outside of that I haven't heard anything one way or another on the other guys. I do have theories about who is going to stay and leave, but I'm going to keep that to myself as it is just theory.

GunRockFaceMask - It's interesting there's been new hires for most of the positions, but there's been no official confirmation on who's staying/leaving. Maybe we need to read between the lines, but it would be nice to know for sure. Someone mentioned the assistance have contracts that expire at year end, so that may be the reason why? For the benefit of the existing players and recruits, having this information sooner rather than later is important.

Someone mentioned the assistance have contracts that expire at year end, so — goaggs1

If it is true that donations are covering the expense of the new hires, maybe they are going to just let the original assistants work out their contracts and help smooth transition(?).

Maybe donations cover the increase in salaries, not the whole banana....that would be my guess.

Here's the release on Coach Jerry Brady.

http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/122116aaa.html

You mean this release? http://aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/86/hawkins-makes-several-additions-to-the-coaching-staff#Item_1

(Y) You know it! Btw 6th, I'm really digging the blog posts. Definitely brings something new to AST. Keep up the awesome work!

Per footballscoop.com and coachingsearch.com Cha'pelle Brown, who has coached secondary at NAU the last 2 seasons, will be joining Hawkins' staff as the defensive backs coach. Played at Colorado (under Hawkins) and was also a graduate assistant there as well as at the University of Oregon.

Does this put Coach Nurse on the speculated out list?

According to communication with the team Coach Nurse is now the Director of Football Operations, and Coach Gomes, previously Defensive QC, is now Director of Player Personnel which appears to be a new position.

Thanks for the insight, 57! So currently our main on field staff is looking like this...

HC - Dan Hawkins

OC - ???
DC - Robert Tucker

Assistant HC/RB - Mark Speckman
QB - ???
WR - Pat McCann*
TE/Recruiting Coordinator - Paul Creighton*
OL - Tim Keane*

DL - David Braun*
OLB - Jerry Brady
ILB - Isaiah Jackson
DB - Cha'pelle Brown

Special Teams - ???

* = Member of Coach Gould's staff