Falcons add new LB coach, retool Special Teams

Bursting into the slow summer season, Coach Brandon finally hired a LB coach to replace the guy who left to go to East Carolina. The new coach is Deion Melvin, who coached at Georgia Southern and Missouri State. On paper, this looks like a good hire. I think these are both solid I-AA programs, and if you can coach there, you can coach at BG. He was also D-Coordinator at Missouri State (the former SW or SE Missouri State). I like the addition a lot, and he comes at a position where I think we have some ability, but need some coaching.

Also, Stephen Bird will be special teams coordinator, in addition to coaching receivers. While not the dedicated coach Falcon fans were looking for, it is an improvement over what we had heard earlier, which was that each coach was going to take on a different element of the special teams--and idea wildly out of favor. We simply have to get better on special teams...tail of woe noted here.

Update: I didn't notice this before, but Bird is now only coaching the "outside" receivers. The "inside" receivers will be coached by Troy Rothenbuhler, who also coaches TEs, which we don't really use (see rationale for move O'Drob to DT). Anyway, I am going to have to do some research to figure out which receivers are which in our offense.