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It’s unofficially official Hokies, we have a new offensive coordinator and his name is Scot Loeffler. Previously at Auburn, Loeffler is a younger coach who should bring a new sense of energy to this stale Virginia Tech offense. While his stay at Auburn was rocky (even though it’s really hard to gauge a coach after just one season), Loeffler had an extremely positive impact at Temple in 2011. Steve Adazzio, Boston College’s new head coach, gave him a ringing endorsement.
Overall, I’m excited for this news. Loeffler is a good quarterback’s coach and I’m hoping this causes Logan Thomas to return for his senior year. He has tutored Chad Henne and Tim Tebow during his career. While neither was good enough to make a huge splash in the NFL, both were outstanding collegiate quarterbacks.
As for the style of offense he’ll run, well that is unknown. At Temple, Loeffler ran more pro-style sets. Lots of ACE formations coupled with numerous shotgun sets. The most impressive part of that is that Loeffler created an offense that catered to Temple’s strength. The Owls finished the 2011 season ranked 7th in rushing offense.
However, at Auburn, Loeffler ran more spread sets with a lot of misdirection. That was largely unsuccessful and it leads me to wonder if he was just the wrong fit for what Gene Chizik wanted to do. Gus Malzahn was a tremendous hire for Auburn a few years back and Loeffler struggled to adapt his system to Malzahn’s players.
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That said, I’m just happy to have some new blood on this Virginia Tech coaching staff. If Loeffler can improve our offense and just make it efficient, I will be thrilled.
Jeff Grimes – Potential OL Coach
I haven’t heard whether or not Jeff Grimes will officially join Loeffler in Blacksburg but if he does, every Hokie fan should be absolutely stoked. Auburn had a dominant offensive line during his 2009-2012 tenure at the school. A large part of that was due to Grimes’s national recruiting prowess. In fact, in the 2010-2012 recruiting classes, Grimes signed 12 four star recruits total. Most of which, were offensive linemen.
With his presence in Auburn, Georgia, Texas, and in other areas, I could see this hire being largely due to his ability on the recruiting trail. That said, Auburn’s offensive line has never been an issue. In their National Championship season, they had one of the better units in the country.
As much as I like the Loeffler hire, Grimes will be a tremendous boost to our offensive line.
Aaron Moorehead – Potential WR Coach
The last position available is at WR coach and it appears that the position may have already been field by current Standford WR coach Aaron Moorehead. Moorehead is a young coach who started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at New Mexico University in 2009. He has spent the last three seasons at Stanford.
Moorehead is a Super Bowl Champion, winning a ring alongside Peyton Manning back in 2007.
Moorehead graduated from Illinois in 2003.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Big let down here!! What happend to Adkins for ol?? Bad hires,
Everybody is entitled to their opinion but I personally love the hires. Grimes is an excellent OL coach and is a much better recruiter than Adkins (who’s going the NFL fwiw). If you’re upset with it, we can always rehire Stiney
Sorry Meagan, but you are absolutely wrong. Grimes isn’t a good OL coach he is a GREAT OL coach. His best ability is to teach attitude. He drives it into his players like Bud does on defense. How do I know this? Because a friend of mine played for him on an incredibly impressive OL unit. I love this hire.
I am bit more hesitant on Loeffler though. He doesn’t have a long track record and last year was not very good showing. But justinc is right. And I think he wasn’t given the opportunity to run “his” offense, rather told to run what had worked previously in the Newton run. That and I believe the team lost a lot of starters. three things that I do like about this hire: 1) CFB is taking a chance to really make change and not just hire a good ole’ boy *cough* chuck long *cough*, and giving an up and comer a chance to prove his worth. People love Pep Hamilton but was he any less experienced than Loeffler? He had one year as an OC and he didn’t even call the plays. That said I would have taken Hamilton if given the choice. 2) Grimes would never go with Loeffler if he didn’t REALLY believe in him as well. That, and Adazzio’s recommendation, should be a vote of confidence, and 3) While perhaps not tenured long as an OC he worked as a very good QB coach for a long time and has been around really good offensive minds.
Not upset expected more I guess? Did you happen to watch auburn this year? It was as bad as watching Stoney? I guess I was just wanting more? I truly don’t see much difference hope I’m wrong tho. Is Logan leaving ?
I did and he just didn’t have the right guys. A lot of our problems weren’t Stiney based, it was more the direction of our offense. When you don’t have a big physical OL to pickup one yard then you’re going to struggle. Auburn was in a similar boat with finesse players trying to run a pro style offense. It just didn’t work.
As for Logan, I wouldn’t be shocked either way but hopefully this hire keeps him in Blacksburg one more year
No sure how you can “LOVE” this selection. The problem I see with Loeffler is he was an OC for one year at Temple and for one year at Auburn. Not much time to evaluate his play calling skills. At Auburn the team was ranked 115th in total offence and after looking at film they did nothing to impress me..I personally think he is not ready for the big time. He was unemployed and needed VT much more than VT needed him. While I am not thrilled, I hope hokie fans rally around Frank’s selection and hope for the best moving forward. We just do not have the cache that big time programs have when looking for assistance coaches. The word nationally was VT had little interest from top assistants around the country. Joker Phillips my personal first choice turned them down immediately according to Florida sources. Again, the choice has been made so let’s hope we get something from Scottie…
That’s a good point and I completely understand it. But, I will add that Auburn was 100th in the country in total offense the year after Cam Newton left. That was the last year of Gus Malzahn’s offense. Obviously, the Tigers struggled to adapt to anything offensively post Cam Newton (perhaps because they were out of money and trying to lay low from the NCAA). So, insert Loeffler who runs a more pro-style offense with a quarterback who was never fit to run that offense. During that one year, it was a complete disaster.
Now, you can take that several ways but judging from Loeffler’s success everywhere else, it’s hard to pin that one year on him and say “ohh, he’s not a good coach.” Like I said previously, It’s hard to judge a coach on one year. Especially when the offense struggled mightily the year before under a coordinator the national press loves (for whatever reason). To be honest, I really like this hire. If he can update VT’s offense and get us back to playing some physical football, we might just take that next step forward.
Oh I forgot to add that I do like Jeff Grimes and think he is much more qualified as our new OL coach. The head scrature is why Gus Malzahn, who knows both of them VERY well would not even consider them to stay on??
Well, one thing I was wondering wasn’t adkins a good recruiter? how does Grimes shape up againt that? Don’t think im downing VT I l ove my hokies as much as any one I guess I just got disappointed with the hire? Like I said I hope this turns out great!!!! With the WR coach, what was up with that hire?
Grimes is considered a great recruiter, especially for offensive lineman. He may not necessarily be known for recruiting kids in Virginia but he is highly regarded as a national level recruiter with ties to Texas and throughout SEC country.
I don’t know anything about Moorehead though. I know he has a Superbowl ring but as far as I can tell he wasn’t a very active member of the Colts when he was playing for them with only 1 touchdown in 5 years. but he was an asst WR coach at Stanford so he at least has had some good experience with them. Plus there is this little tidbit from wikipedia that is interesting: ” He is friends with professional wrestlers CM Punk and Colt Cabana.”
Moorehead would have joined Pep Hamilton on staff had he’d been hired here. I think that hire had a lot to do with ethnicity, which is something I’d hate to bring up. But, the Hokies needed to stay diverse on staff so hiring a young African-American coach with great references and a lot of personal success seemed like a no brainer. I’ll have to do some more research on him but for a position coach, he seems like a solid hire. Cornell will no longer be the only coach who has a Super Bowl ring.
As for Grimes, his recruiting record far out does that of Adkins. I mean Grimes brought in 12 4* commits in three years and also signed one 5*. He’s a guy with national ties and he can recruit the south. I really think he is going to provide a big boost on the offensive line and on the recruiting trail.
Does this mean our receivers will all get the Knees 2 Faces t-shirts and tell opposing secondaries to GTS(Go To Sleep)? LOL, sorry, I couldn’t resist.