Monday, February 13, 2012

Sean Desai reportedly new Special Teams coach

According to coachingsearch.com, Sean Desai is BC's new Special Teams coach. Only 29, Desai is actually a BU grad and holds a PhD from Temple. He's got to be one of the most interesting candidates Spaz could find. While green, I endorse the move. We need to take chances and we need enthusiasm.


Desai overlapped with Mike Siravo at Temple, so I would guess that is his connection to Spaz and Gene. If he worked for Golden and Golden brought him to Miami, you know he is willing to work hard and recruit hard.


If the remainder of the staff has this sort of profile, I will be happy.

13 comments:

Big Jack Krack said...

This deserves the benefit of the doubt - This could be a very good hire. Hopefully Sean Desai can exploit his New England ties for BC's benefit going forward.

Unfortunately, Spaziani is in the position of having to bring in new coaches on short notice. Let's hope he can pull it off.

mod34b said...
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mod34b said...

So tell me again ATL, why is this such a great hire?

1. Desai is not a former college football player. That fact is going to create an immediate credibility issue for players; I do not even think he was a high school player.

2. Desai was not a fotball coach at Miami. REPEAT: he was not a football coach at MIAMI. He was an assist to the Director for football operations. Meaning he worked on budgeting, airline scheduling, logitics etc. Not football coaching. This is not an impressive background.

3. Desai was not a recruiter under Golden. Look at his Miami Bio: "Desai works closely with director of football operations Tom Deahn to maintain the day-to-day operations of the football team. In addition, he assists with the administrative side of recruiting." -- Desai was not recruiting, he was performing secrtarial duties for others recruiting

4. Desai's experience includes 4 years as an assistant coach to a high school freshman team!!

5. Desai started working with Golden as an academic adviser to players. Not as a football guy.

6. You are overstating Golden's love for this kid. Golden brought Desai to Miami and DEMOTED him. Desai was a special teams 'coach' (not sure if coach is the right word) at Temple in 2010 only, but when he got to the U, he was removed from coaching and placed in an admin role.

7. He was involved in NCAA football coaching for all of ONE SEASON -- 2010 at Temple.

This is a very unimpressive hire.

Seriously, this is the coaching equivalant to pulling Steve Aponavicous (sp??) out of the stands --- come to think of it Sid Vicious owuld be a better hire as a Special teams coach!

And by the way, it is not too "late" to make assistant coach hires. Wake Forest just hired a OL and DL coach last Thursday!

EL MIZ said...

mod, i don't know anything about desai so i'm not going to say this is a great hire or not. but in response to your 1st point, neither chip kelly nor mike leach played college football. those are just 2 examples, but to not hire a guy because he didn't play football would be pretty stupid, especially if, as it seems here, he has shown a passion to work a bunch of low-paying and unglamorous jobs for a while for his chance to break in.

how were temple's ST last year? that is the key question. they didn't miss an extra point all year, and were perfect on FG's inside 30 yards. 7/10 on 30-39 yarders, and 2/5 on 40+.

as far as i can tell, temple did not give up a special teams TD all season last year. that speaks to good coaching.

Benjamin said...
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Benjamin said...

It could be worse. We could be Maryland with their 10+ transfers...

mod34b said...

El Miz - The fact that he never played football is not the only factor. But combine lack of playing experience with a lack of coaching experience (1 year as an actual coach; and demoted to a non-coach last year at Miami), and that leaves you with someone lacking basic qualifications to be hired for a coordinator position, albeit a Special Teams coordinator.

He has no recruiting credentials either.

Do tell what it is about Sean Desai that is making you, ATL, and BJK think this is a good hire?

What am I missing that would lead anyone to believe this is a quality hire? Why are you all so willing to overlook a glaring lack of experience? why overstate the Al Golden connection (who demoted him)?

eagle1331 said...

It's like they heard us.. AL WASHINGTON RETURNS TO THE HEIGHTS! Assistant Special teams and D-Line... Also, Aaron Smith to WR Coach

Big Jack Krack said...

Mod - I said this COULD BE a very good hire. I don't really know.

It deserves the benefit of the doubt. We can't change it, so I for one hope it's a good hire.

It's for sure we're going young now, with Al Washington and Aaron Smith.

What's the deal with Commissiong staying now?

ATL_eagle said...

Mod34:

The GAs and Ops guys do a lot more with recruiting than you think. As a now staffer they are not allowed to visit players, but they are networking, evaluating video and camps and tracking movement. Moving from staff at Temple to Ops at Miami is not a demotion. It was probably more pay. If Golden brought him along and gave him a recruiting role, I would say that is a good endorsement. I think earning you PhD as a grad assistant also speaks to his work ethic -- which can't be said for some recent staffers.

eagle1331 said...

Mod/El Miz/Atl -

BC's GAs typically fill the exact roll that you are describing as Desai's position at UM. They are the ones that lay the ground work for recruits, serve as the primary contact with the school (despite whoever is their coach contact), set everything up for visits, and spend the vast, vast majority of the time with actual recruits on visits both at home and on campus.

Many of our GAs from my time working with the team are now coaches on some level... many went with TOB to NC State. Two of his GAs or past GAs that were with the team then are now HC less than 8 years down the road.

To me, this seems like a pretty logical coaching progression for a guy without a football playing/coaching background. He's gathered a bunch of experience to absorb all aspects of college coaching he can, now he's getting the shot to be a real coach.

Maybe UM just didn't have a spot for him as a coach or in the budget and Golden did whatever he could (i.e. create that position) to bring him along and continue molding him into a future coach? At least, that will be my hope, rather than look at the glass half empty. If nothing else, he at least sounds like the next Barry Gallup... actually I take that back as I'm not sure we need that.

mod34b said...

eagle1331 -- that was really part of my point. Why does BC have to stoop so low as to get an assistant who has no experience?

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