Donahue fills out staff: "Meet the Metz"

Since Joe Jones took the BU job, Steve Donahue has been left with a opening on his staff. It looks like he will fill it with one of his former assistants Izzi Metz. Metz comes to BC after five seasons as the Head Coach at Hobart. Blaudschun speculates that Donahue might move Metz into an Ops position. I am not too concerned about which role he takes. My bigger issue is recruiting. Let's look at the Pros and Cons of Donahue hiring one of his own for the spot.

Pros
-- Metz already has a working relationship with Donahue. There is trust and an understanding of the systems. Metz will be familiar with how Donahue runs things around the program.
-- Metz has head coaching experience. It was at Hobart, but Metz still understands in game coaching.
-- Metz is the right age to make the jump to the big leagues. He's young enough to work hard and brings a young energy, but also has been around the block once. He won't get overwhelmed by the new level of competition.

Cons
-- Metz has never recruited at this level. He is filling the role left by our ace recruiter. Even if Donahue shifts duties a bit, Metz will have to recruit ACC talent for the first time. It is an entirely different process from Hobart or Cornell.
-- Doesn't have much experience outside of the Donahue environment. They haven't been together for a few years, but coaching Donahue's system at Hobart is not a huge career stretch from working for him at Cornell. One thing I liked about Jones is that he brought head coaching experience and the perspective of working as an assistant in an elite conference.

Donahue has been pretty solid in building the program so far, so Metz coming on board doesn't give me much pause. I just hope he can fill Jones's big shoes and keep up our momentum.

Background
A Cornell blog's look at Metz.