Jerry Montgomery leaves Oklahoma for Green pastures of NFL
Best of luck.
Seeing as Oklahoma announced its 2015 coaching staff less than 24 hours earlier, I can honestly say I wasn't expecting to see news today of the Sooners' newly minted co-defensive coordinator lighting out for another job. Yet, with defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery now heading off for a gig with the Green Bay Packers, well… here we are.
Obviously the timing of the announcement creates a mess of problems for Bob Stoops. Montgomery was OU's ace recruiter and did the heavy lifting with a number of the Sooners' top defensive prospects in the 2015 class. That group signed with OU a week ago. As we've seen recently, that rightfully leads to some hurt feelings among recruits. Aside from finding a new defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator, Stoops will have some smoothing over to do in his locker room.
(I'd hope that Stoops also would publicly address how this went down with Montgomery, but I'm not holding my breath.)
Nobody asked, but a couple potential replacements I would consider: Brick Haley, who's now "interning" at LSU after Les Miles hired Ed Orgeron; Oregon State's Ilaisa Tuiaki, who oversaw Utah's defensive front for the last two years; and Notre Dame's Mike Elston.
In terms of the state of the program, OU has been fortunate to avoid heavy staff turnover under Stoops. Assistants generally don't stick around long in college football. Montgomery's two-year tenure in Norman isn't uncommon. When the NFL comes to take your assistants, it speaks far better of your program than when they aren't leaving of their own accord. That's what OU signed up for when Stoops went out looking for new blood in 2013.
Frankly, if the Sooners are lucky, they will be fending off suitors for Montgomery's successor two years from now.