What do you guys think?
I woke to rumors we might land Simonton, Jackson, or Bernard as a RB coach. Those wouldn’t be great hires because they’d be more alums/incest, so on that front it’s good we expanded the gene pool. But instead we got Pitre, who doesn’t even have a page chronicling his career arc. Smith claims Pitre is a great, up and coming coach who is a great West Coast recruiter. Really? We’ll see. Gut reaction is disappointment. Mainly because (a) who knows anything about this guy? and (b) can he really out recruit established position coaches given he was at Montana State?
Greg Burns comes off as passive and a “Riley Guy” ala Rod Perry in this interview. Gut reaction is (a) looks low energy/intensity like a Riley guy…wouldn’t be surprised if Riley suggested him to Smith (b) comes off as extremely passive and even clueless at times (c) didn’t have a job last year after being fired by Cal. How good can he be?
Neither appears to be the ace recruiter we desperately need. It’s like having a bullpen full of setup men. Meanwhile, we let go of Hall, who by all accounts was an excellent recruiter and brought much needed energy.
I’ll try to give these guys a fair chance, but these are my gut reactions. Open to hearing how/why these guys are the best we could do.