Approaching the 2012 football season needing to replace 21 seniors, including several players that had carved historical places in Bronco football history, Coach Chris Petersen really has his work cut out for him. With Kellen Moore moving on and a senior class that produced 50 wins in four seasons needing to be replaced, there are major areas of concern. Are the Broncos a program that can sustain those kinds of losses and just reload, rather than rebuild?
Then the word came this week that offensive coordinator Brent Pease was leaving for Florida. Shortly after, special teams coordinator and nickelbacks coach Jeff Choate chose to take a position with Washington State. Finally, on Thursday, defensive backs coach Marcel Yates reportedly accepted the same job with Texas A&M under new head coach Kevin Sumlin.
Now there are even more questions about the path that Boise State football is on. Petersen has never had to replace more than one assistant on his staff in an offseason. This marks the third consecutive year that he is replacing a coordinator and the defections of Choate and Yates were body shots to a staff that has had incredible stability until now.
Of course, there is no knockout punch as long as Petersen is patrolling the Blue. Petersen’s presence, strangely enough, is at least part of the reason why these coaches are moving on. Pease has head coaching aspirations. It is possible that he would have received those opportunities at another non-BCS school in due time. He had already interviewed for the vacant job at Houston that was opened when Sumlin moved on to take the job with Texas A&M. Yet it was increasingly clear that the top spot in Boise was not going to be available any time soon. Not with Petersen’s new contract that puts him in the $2 million per season stratosphere of coaches.
Furthermore, with Petersen choosing not to move on, it means that his coaches would not have an opportunity to move on, and up, with him. The prospect of coaching at Stanford, or UCLA, or even Penn State would have meant higher profiles, better pay and enhanced opportunity to be hired for another big-time job. Petersen’s loyalty to Boise State does not afford those types of opportunities.
Certainly these coaches know that they were one season removed from joining a BCS program, as Boise State is scheduled to join the Big East in 2013. Yet the lure of money and the increased spotlight of the SEC (in the case of Pease and Yates) or the Pac-12 (in the case of Choate) was too much to turn down, especially in light of the on-field transition at Boise State.
Perhaps the demise of the non-BCS darlings has been overblown. It was not long ago that there was much handwringing and consternation at the thought of replacing Bart Hendrix. Then Ryan Dinwiddie came along and broke nearly every passing record on the books. When Dinwiddie left, he was leaving the program to a seldom-used sophomore. Jared Zabransky would only go on to win 12 games in his first season and by his senior year lead the Broncos to a Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma in one of the greatest college football games of all time.
The 14-0 Broncos were on top of the world and there was no way that Zabransky could be replaced. It’s true that the 2007 Broncos struggled a bit more than in some other seasons during their decade of dominance but their quarterback play from senior Taylor Tharp was actually quite good. Not only that, there was an undersized true freshman carving up the scout team during his redshirt season that would go on to some acclaim.
Being tasked with replacing Kellen Moore, the greatest player in Boise State history, would be a difficult job. If Pease, as quarterbacks coach, struggled to develop one of the young replacements, would that take some of the shine off of his coaching star? Surely the Broncos cannot be an offensive juggernaut next season without the likes of Moore, Doug Martin, Nate Potter and Tyler Shoemaker, can they? Pease chose to strike while the iron was hot.
A similar circumstance surrounded Jeff Choate. As special teams coach, his return and coverage units were generally outstanding. Yet the cat calls were already starting due to the kicking foibles that have plagued the Broncos the past two seasons. Obviously it is not Choate that is being tasked with putting the ball between the uprights but his unit’s failures in the biggest moments brought some heat along with them, fair or unfair. Furthermore, there was not a lot of room for upward mobility on the staff with Robert Prince hired last season as the coordinator-in-waiting for the offense and Pete Kwiatkowski firmly entrenched on the defensive side.
Yates had been with the staff longer than any other assistant and had blossomed into a coaching star. Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall with his lack of opportunity in Boise as well when it was Kwiatkowski that was promoted to defensive coordinator following Justin Wilcox’s departure for Tennessee following the 2009 season. Yates will now get exposure in the SEC as Texas A&M makes the jump to that conference for 2012. He is certainly the most surprising, and disappointing, of the defections and leaves a gaping hole on the Boise State staff. Did he hear the whispers of frustrated fans at midseason when the secondary was getting diced up, leading to the Broncos’ only loss of the year?
Although their contributions will be missed on the field, perhaps the more troubling aspect of their departures will be seen on the recruiting trail. All three were major contributors to the talent replenishing every offseason that is known as the recruiting game. Yates had become the de facto leader of the coaching staff when it came to recruiting and his territory was of major importance: the Los Angeles area. Pease had opened a pipeline to Texas in recent years and Choate had success all over the country, including in that same Texas region.
The immediate impact of the coaching departures includes the fact that Signing Day is just over two weeks away. Is it possible that Boise State’s quiet, but strong, recruiting class could be in the same upheaval as their coaching staff? So far, it has been mostly quiet on the recruiting front. Much of the class has already been locked up and several players still seem strong in their commitment. The Broncos keeping all of the players that are currently committed would be a huge win. After all, other programs are not so lucky.
Coaching changes and new hires around the country are constantly throwing recruiting into a frenzy. No place has that been more obvious than at UCLA. Head Coach Jim Mora, Jr brought in a staff that included noted recruiters such as Demetrice Martin from Washington and Adrian Klemm from SMU. Both coaches have already “stolen” players to their new home, much to the chagrin of Husky and Mustang fans. It is always possible that a player that had grown especially close to one of the assistants would move on.
Fortunately for Boise State, that does not yet appear to be the case. Quarterback Nick Patti, an Orlando, FL product, reiterated his commitment to Boise State this week and it is not clear whether he was being pursued by the Gators in the wake of the Pease hiring. Pease played a role in grabbing commitments from six Texas prospects in this recruiting cycle and it remains to be seen whether they were committed to the coach, or to the school. It is highly unlikely that any of these prospects are on the cusp of joining Pease at Florida but it always opens up the questions about whether or not they would be just as comfortable with their 2nd choice, and a recruiter they were familiar with.
The biggest loss is probably Yates’ pipeline to Los Angeles, where he had pulled in some outstanding prospects in recent years including Titus Young, Austin Pettis and Jeron Johnson. These are NFL-caliber players that had slipped through the recruiting cracks and saw Yates as a father figure of sorts. Having played at Boise State in the late ‘90s, and almost immediately grabbing a spot on the coaching staff after his playing days were over, Yates has worked hard to develop a reputation as a strong coach and recruiter. Some of Boise State’s best athletes traditionally come out of the Los Angeles area and it is a tough spot to gain a recruiting foothold. Yates had maneuvered himself, and Boise State, into a real player down there and it will be very difficult to replace that contribution to the staff.
Assuming there are no major defections forthcoming from the recruiting class, and the remaining members of the coaching staff are stable, the rest of this puzzle will be filled in over the coming days as Petersen attempts to put his staff back together. Current wide receivers coach Robert Prince has already been announced as Pease’s replacement. It should be a relatively seamless transition for Prince despite being with the current staff for only one season. He has previous Boise State experience, working with Petersen under Dan Hawkins, as well as valuable NFL experience when he chose to take an NFL job after the 2003 season.
Along with Prince, the rumors were finally confirmed on Friday that former Oregon State quarterback, and Idaho Vandals quarterback coach, Jonathan Smith, would be joining the staff as the quarterbacks coach. In a role that Pease held in 2011, and Bryan Harsin before him, Smith is tasked with grooming a replacement for the most productive quarterback in school history. It was Smith that helped develop Nathan Enderle from an erratic quarterback to the #5 ranking in quarterback efficiency in their final year together. Smith was most recently the offensive coordinator at FCS power Montana.
Two other positions remain open on the staff with Choate and Yates yet to be replaced. It has not been determined whether linebackers coach Bob Gregory would absorb the nickelback position that Choate coached in 2011, or if it might fall to the new defensive backs coach. Either way, it looks like a new special teams coordinator would be able to focus solely on that job. One possible candidate could be former Boise State coach Kent Riddle who was with the staff from 2001-2005 before leaving with Hawkins for Colorado. He is currently serving as the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach at North Texas.
Yates has not been officially announced to his new position at Texas A&M so a formal replacement at Boise State has not yet been named, if that person has already been identified. Replacing Yates on the recruiting trail will be just as critical.
While it is frustrating to see this kind of turnover in the coaching staff with the program on the cusp of their foray into a BCS conference, it is obvious that Boise State just can’t compete right now with the salaries that are bandied about by the SEC and Pac-12. Major television contracts are lining the coffers of their athletic departments and they are merely using the resources at their disposal. It is not that Boise State is seen as a stepping-stone job in the way it may have when Houston Nutt, Dirk Koetter and Hawkins all used their time with the Broncos to leverage bigger head coaching opportunities. In fact, the coaches are leaving one of the most consistently outstanding programs in the country, in terms of on-field results, for programs that have experienced disappointing seasons recently.
The Broncos are struggling to keep their staff together this season for myriad reasons. Money is unquestionably one of those reasons. Boise State’s assistant pool is not embarrassingly small but is not on the level of major BCS programs yet. Another reason is opportunity. With Petersen entrenched, the ability to move up within the program, or have new opportunities that happen when an entire staff moves on, are virtually nil.
Finally, it could be that these coaches portend a downward spiral that begins when the most decorated class in football history moves on and they eventually find themselves out of work by failing to turn it around. With Petersen in charge, that seems highly unlikely. Yet you can’t fault a coach for doing what he feels is best for his future, as well as his present. Taking advantage of the Boise State cachet and parlaying the success of the team into a bigger job with better salary and brighter lights is something that is becoming increasingly frequent, and trying.
The future of the Boise State football program appears to be at a bit of a crossroads. Petersen has made successful hires every step of the way and it would be a surprise if he didn’t make the right hires now. Prince and Smith were both solid moves to work with an offense that could be facing a major overhaul this offseason. The other two positions to be filled are critically important as well.
The bottom line is that teams don't come calling for assistant coaches at programs that don't win. The fact that Boise State's star pupils are being pulled away means that there is a lot of respect out there for Petersen and what he's accomplished. Looking at the losses in a vacuum, they are difficult to comprehend in some cases. Yet they also open doors for hungry assistants who are eager to coach under one of the best head coaches in this generation. The next Bryan Harsin, or Justin Wilcox, or Marcel Yates could already be on the staff. Or that person could be hired in the next few days.
Petersen is still the alpha and omega of the program. If Coach Pete can fill in a staff that keeps the recruiting class together and perpetuates the culture of Boise State, there should be little to no drop-off. Yet if the new coaches are successful in maintaining the Bronco prestige, don’t expect them to be here for long, at least not until the Broncos can match salaries with the big boys.
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