Falcons Land QB

As I had mentioned yesterday, BG had to be on the lookout for QB help for this season, and they have found it.

His name is Drew Pyne, and he will be enrolling at his 4th institution of higher learning.

He started at Notre Dame, where he played 3 years (including the COVID year).  In 2022, he lost the starter's job, but then the starter went down with a season-ending injury.  Pyne had a nice year, making 10 starts and going 8-2.  He completed 65% of his passes, 22 TD over 6 INT, and a QB rating of 155.  

He went into the portal and transferred to Arizona State, where he played only 2 games due to injury. He finished his degree at ND and then transferred to Missouri.  He made 1 start there last year.  He had a big game in Missouri's upset win over Oklahoma.

In the 2022 year, Pyne graded out at 69.1% on PFF.  His passing was 72 and running was 48. His strongest type of pass at Notre Dame was the deep ball and his weakest was 0-10 yards...he says that he is coming to BG to play in Travis Partridge's spread offense.  FWIW, it was short passes to the right that killed him.

For comparison, Bazelak graded at 78 offense, 75 passing and 66 running last season.

He has two years left.

Welcome to the Falcons, Drew.

Portal Updates

 A quick update on the portal news....

For men's basketball, I had previously reported on Johnson, Campbell and Felt.  Since then, Braelon Green entered, as did Derrick Butler, benefitting from the JUCO decision granting him another year. 

To date, only Green has found a new home--and that is EMU.

Even more importantly, there are no reports of players finding their way to BG.  The commits are starting to pick up....I suspect some of the guys we might want and waiting to see if they get a better offer.  This is a vital time, obviously.  As per usual, we are down to very few players and Akron is going to return everybody plus an OSU player they picked up and Kent will return almost everyone.

Since our last update for football, three more players are in the portal...Dillon Robinson, Chace Davis and Justin Lampson.

Robinson was a 2-star recruit and part of the Anthony Wayne crew that came to BG.  Davis played in 24 games over two seasons at BG, without generating any huge numbers.  I think he got a JUCO year back.

QB Justin Lampson, late of Syracuse and Stanford, had committed to BG but he has now gone to Montana State.

Kal-El Pascal, a promising D-back, portaled and then unportaled.

The football crew is also working like mad.  Remember, BG is not out of the woods.  After spring practice, there are often additional portal departures.  To date, our post-Loeffler losses have been less than many others have seen when a coach leaves.

Remember, we were expecting a rebuilding year before the change.  We need to fill some holes to be remotely competitive next year and no one is under any illusions about it.

Three MBB Players Enter Portal

The Portal opened yesterday, and it has pretty much gone as expected.  Marcus Johnson, Javonte Campbell, and Jamai Felt have all entered the portal.  Assuming they do actually move on, we thank them for their time at BG.  Each of them was part of a plucky, undermanned team and played under circumstances we would not have expected at the start of the year.  Campbell playing with a broken hand. Johnson and Felt logging way more minutes than you would expect.

This is how it is going to be, until...I don't know.  But essentially, we will have to find new guys who excel every year or figure out a way to pay them at least comparable to our peer schools.

Best of luck to them all.  Meanwhile, no non-P4 schools qualified for the Sweet Sixteen and this is the primary reason why.

Coaching Staff Finalized

The coaching staff has been finalized.  It's four guys from the old staff, one new guy and the remainder from the staff at Tennessee State.  Not too far from what I would expect.

Josh Crawford is the RB Coach, a position he held at TSU. He has a degree in medicine from Vanderbilt and was a graduate assistant at TSU and then at Utah for one year before moving to TSU.

And then there's WR Coach Bruce Johnson.  He has coached since 1998 and in college since 2000, including Indiana, Mississippi and Liberty.  He was at Central Connecticut and moved to TSU just a few days before all this went down.

Partridge, QB

Nosal, OL

Crawford, RB

Johnson, WR

Bayer, ST

Alexander, TE, AHC

Fisher, DC

McNutt, DB

Jackson, DB

Simmons, DL

Bowden, OL

New Football Assistant

There are reports in The Tennessean of another football assistant being named to the BG staff.  This one is Dewayne Alexander, who will be assistant head coach and TE coach. Alexander was the head coach at Tennessee Tech. Last year he was an assistant at Sewanee and was set to the OL Coach and TSU when George left for BG.

Updated unofficial list.

Partridge, QB

Nosal, OL

White, RB

Bayer, ST

Alexander, TE, AHC

Fisher, DC

McNutt, DB

Jackson, DB

Simmons, DL

Bowden, OL

More Coaching Updates

So, the football staff appears to be rounding into shape.  Based on reporting on Football Coaching Scoop confirmed by internal sources, the new coaches are all from Tennessee State.

Brandon Fisher will be the DC.  He is the son of Jeff Fisher, who coaches George in the NFL.  He has been the DC at Tennesee State for four years, and coached in the NFL for 8 years.

Richard McNutt will also be coming to BG.  He coached D-backs at TSU. This is one a lot of us identified as an important guy, because he has great connections inside Ohio. He has coached at Youngstown State, Toledo, Kent State, and Ohio State and was also a member of the Cleveland Browns’ staff.  He also played for OSU.  Note that the KSU years were when Doug Martin coached there and they had a very good defensive unit.

Joe Bowden is the associate head coach and LB coach. He played 8 years in the NFL and also coached in the NFL for 5 years, mostly with Tennesee/Houston. Has coached for 18 years.

D-line Coach is Clyde Simmons.  He's an NFL star, playing 15 years, two-time all-Pro, eye-popping numbers and in the Eagles HOF.  He also has 10 years of coaching experience.

There are reports as well that OC/QB coach Travis Partridge is close to coming. He was an NFL signee and played in the CFL with coaching experience at Kansas, UT-Martin, Delta State and TSU.

So, the staff looks like this;

• Partridge, QB
• Nosal, OL
• White, RB
• Bayer, TE/ST
• Fisher, DC
• McNutt, DB
• Jackson, DB
• Simmons, DL
• Bowden, OL

The only position group not represented appears to be WR.  We know the "holdover" guy won't be here, but there is no word on whether the TSU WR Coach is coming.  And the RB might not be final.

One thing: We cannot possibly have had a coaching staff with this many pro players. So, there are four: Bayer, Simmons, Bowden, and George. Then you have pro coaching experience from Fisher and McNutt. It's huge.

I looked at our list of assistant coaches...I didn't do a full count....Cato June, Cornell Brown, Jon Hoke, Vance Joseph, Mark Miller...there are probably more who played in the NFL.

4 at a time is significant.  Let's say that.

So, the staff is coming together. It's time to get to work. Spring practice is coming up fast, and recruiting is going on like crazy.

Football Coaching Updates

Another update on the football staff....Steve Morrison has not been retained and that has left BG with four coaches from the previous staff: 

Derrick Jackson, DB

Alex Bayer, TE/ST

Greg Nosal, OL

Brian White, RB

As I understand it, that's the end of the process.  So next up will be incoming coaches.

Know this.  It's a madhouse down there.  Staffing up, getting coaches, recruiting across numerous levels....'25, '26, portal guys, OUR GUYS.  You want to grind?  Pick up a program in March.