Knee-jerking: Oklahoma hires Diron Reynolds as defensive line coach
Who? (Image: tulsaworld.com)
A few quick thoughts on Oklahoma's hire of Diron Reynolds as defensive line coach:
*Jerry Montgomery's departure came at an awkward time, which probably made the possibility of a true home run hire remote for Bob Stoops. One of the candidates reported to have interviewed for the job was recently demoted. The other coaches at Georgia Tech, which is a rung or two down on the national ladder from OU.
That's no slight to Brick Haley or Mike Pelton. It just goes to show how thin the crop of candidates actually were. A month or so ago, maybe we're talking about more of a name hire.
*Reynolds' Stanford connection jumps off the page. To be fair, he didn't even stay there for a year, so we're not talking deep Cardinal roots.
Still, it means Reynolds has experience with the 3-4. There's also no denying that the Cardinal have one of the best-coached defenses in the country and a solid track record of slowing down spread offenses.
If he can bring some of that fancy strategizing with him from Palo Alto, that should work.
*Ironically, I registered my objection to hiring Stanford's actual defensive line coach, Randy Hart, pretty quickly after the news about Montgomery broke:
*Speaking of which, Reynolds' coaching pedigree is pretty solid: a combined 10 years under Tony Dungy and Leslie Frazier in the NFL. That he also has the imprimatur of David Shaw doesn't hurt, either.
*Of course, we have no clue what Reynolds can do on the recruiting trail. That raises some concerns, given Montgomery's prowess.
I can only assume he will push his NFL background pretty hard. Break out that 2006 Super Bowl ring and see what happens, I guess.
*Stoops sure as hell played this one close to the vest. I wonder if the lack of name recognition had something to do with that, i.e. he wasn't interested in hearing about any possible backlash ahead of time.