staff updates.

I wrote the other night that I would keep y’all updated based on what I can confirm, and that’s exactly what I’m going to take a second to do now. I spoke with one of my sources last night about his thoughts on potential staff changes, and he laid it out for me in simple terms.

He fully believes that Riley will be gone in some form or fashion. It could be that he takes another job or that there’s a “mutual parting of ways.” Dabo isn’t one to throw his guys under the bus, and he likes to keep things neat if he can—very reminiscent of when he “parted ways” with Kevin Steele after the Orange bowl trashing. Garrett Riley was in talks with North Texas, before they made the move today to hire another candidate, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that he seems to be looking.

We talked about the defensive staff for quite a while, and he mentioned a coach—who I won’t reference—whom he thinks probably won’t be in the building due to issues that have dragged on from last year. There were reports that the staff seemed to turn against Wes Goodwin, and my source informed me that it was driven by another individual Wes coached over. Obviously, that isn’t a mentality healthy for any program, especially when you take into account that the staffer had his eye on the DC spot that ultimately went to Tom Allen.

I wrote before that the tweaks to the secondary staff mid-season might’ve been a giveaway that moves would be coming there, and in my opinion, they certainly will. Safety coach Mikey Conn could be eyeing another role on a different team, and Reed may be on the way out as well. My source told me that he thinks Dabo believes Reed is too soft as a coach, and he even reinforced to me that Dabo held the same belief even in the “Glory days.”

Of course, none of this is meant as shots at any coach—it’s simply where things stand. My source believes the defensive staff will be cleaned out apart from Tom Allen, who I believe will be very closely linked to selecting a new group. There is a high probability that these coaches have already been informed to start job hunting, and that they’ve known they won’t be returning next year.

With staff meetings today and signing day tomorrow, I expect changes to be made within the next few weeks—but I could be wrong. Patience is the name of the game in situations like these, and we have to understand that Dabo knows he has issues on his staff. At this point, it feels more like a matter of when than if.