[msqueri]

The NCAA currently allows FBS programs to have a maximum of 10 on-field assistants. These are also the same individuals who are allowed to go on the road to recruit. There are other assistants on staff but they're not allowed to go on the road to recruit (they can send letters and make phone calls) and not supposed to do any on-field coaching in practice (wink, wink, SEC).

The NCAA Division I Council is considering a proposal to remove the cap and allow FBS programs to hire an unlimited number of on-field assistants but the vote has been pushed back multiple times and probably won't go into effect until next summer at the earliest. G5 programs have resisted the change, concerned that it will further exacerbate the disparity between the have's and the have-not's.

In any event, TT's staff will have 10 full-time assistants intially. If no one on staff has the OC title, then that just frees up one more slot for a different position. For example, he could split up the secondary and have separate coaches for corners and safeties, or inside and outside receivers, etc. It's one more position than he had at Sac State (FCS allows a max of 9 on-field assistants) so it'll be interesting to see how he utilizes it.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's debatable whether Stanford will/should have two DB coaches (if not three!) among the ten allowed assistants. This is an area in which Shaw, Anderson, and Akina were deeply and damagingly anachronistic. In modern college football you absolutely need separate corner and safety coaches. On every play we have 3-4 different positions in the secondary when you account for field, boundary, and slot corners and the safety positions. "DB" as Stanford has treated the position room (both in terms of coaching responsibility and, often, in terms of the recruiting and coaching of personnel pursuant to Akina's fetishization of "versatility") is a quite poor way to think about 45.45 percent of the defense. Other programs recognize this.

Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Clemson, TCU, Utah, Penn State, Texas (very notable as this is the single team in the country most connected to the Chris Petersen defensive coaching tree), Kansas State, Oregon, Washington, USC, Oregon State, Notre Dame, LSU, Oklahoma, Baylor, Mississippi State, Minnesota, Ole Miss all have explicitly different corners and safeties coaches. That's 20 of the top 25 Sagarin teams in the country having two DB coaches. There are roughly as many teams with THREE DB coaches (yes, at least four teams have three different of the ten allowed coaches handle corners, safeties, and nickels) as there are with one. Among the coaches who don't explicitly separate safeties, Kirby Smart hardly seems to count as he was an NFL and Alabama safeties coach and I'm sure helps mentor that group.

This isn't a close call. Troy Taylor himself seems to recognize this as he separated corners and safeties into two positions even when he only had nine assistants allowed.

Good riddance to the idiocy of letting Duane Akina coach almost half of the defense. God we were so stupid under Shaw.

[msqueri]

The NCAA currently allows FBS programs to have a maximum of 10 on-field assistants. These are also the same individuals who are allowed to go on the road to recruit. There are other assistants on staff but they're not allowed to go on the road to recruit (they can send letters and make phone calls) and not supposed to do any on-field coaching in practice (wink, wink, SEC).

The NCAA Division I Council is considering a proposal to remove the cap and allow FBS programs to hire an unlimited number of on-field assistants but the vote has been pushed back multiple times and probably won't go into effect until next summer at the earliest. G5 programs have resisted the change, concerned that it will further exacerbate the disparity between the have's and the have-not's.

In any event, TT's staff will have 10 full-time assistants intially. If no one on staff has the OC title, then that just frees up one more slot for a different position. For example, he could split up the secondary and have separate coaches for corners and safeties, or inside and outside receivers, etc. It's one more position than he had at Sac State (FCS allows a max of 9 on-field assistants) so it'll be interesting to see how he utilizes it.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's debatable whether Stanford will/should have two DB coaches (if not three!) among the ten allowed assistants. This is an area in which Shaw, Anderson, and Akina were deeply and damagingly anachronistic. In modern college football you absolutely need separate corner and safety coaches. On every play we have 3-4 different positions in the secondary when you account for field, boundary, and slot corners and the safety positions. "DB" as Stanford has treated the position room (both in terms of coaching responsibility and, often, in terms of the recruiting and coaching of personnel pursuant to Akina's fetishization of "versatility") is a quite poor way to think about 45.45 percent of the defense. Other programs recognize this.

Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, Clemson, TCU, Utah, Penn State, Texas (very notable as this is the single team in the country most connected to the Chris Petersen defensive coaching tree), Kansas State, Oregon, Washington, USC, Oregon State, Notre Dame, LSU, Oklahoma, Baylor, Mississippi State, Minnesota, Ole Miss all have explicitly different corners and safeties coaches. That's 20 of the top 25 Sagarin teams in the country having two DB coaches. There are roughly as many teams with THREE DB coaches (yes, at least four teams have three different of the ten allowed coaches handle corners, safeties, and nickels) as there are with one. Among the coaches who don't explicitly separate safeties, Kirby Smart hardly seems to count as he was an NFL and Alabama safeties coach and I'm sure helps mentor that group.

This isn't a close call. Troy Taylor himself seems to recognize this as he separated corners and safeties into two positions even when he only had nine assistants allowed.

Good riddance to the idiocy of letting Duane Akina coach almost half of the defense. God we were so stupid under Shaw.