It was been an off-season of turnover for Virginia Tech football coach Brent Pry when it comes to his coaching staff. Gone are offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen, defensive coordinator Chris Marve and offensive line coach Ron Crook as the headline losses.
Pry has brought in Sam Siefkes to be the defensive coordinator, Matt Moore as offensive line coach and Philip Montgomery as the offensive coordinator. On Wednesday, he announced more additions with Cannon Montgomery as the assistant running backs coach, Jireh Wilson as an edge coach, and Bryan Whitehead is the new nickel coach.
Pry also shuffled around his staff with Brent Davis, the tight ends coach, Shawn Quinn, as the outside linebackers coach, Xavier Adibi is the new inside linebackers coach, and Jens Danielson is the assistant offensive line coach. With all the additions and changes, here are three thoughts of the new staff.
Brent Pry adds experience with his staff
One takeaway from the additions and changes is that Pry has Philip Montgomery on staff who has experience as a head coach. Last season and the first couple of his seasons in Blacksburg, he has struggled with decisions and games, and now he has someone with head coaching experience to bounce ideas off of.
It may not seem like much, but given all the issues Pry and the Hokies have had in one-score games, anything that can help in any area is a positive on both sides of the ball.
Pry adds coaches who are familiar with each other
Whitehead has been on a pair of stops with Siefkes before coming to Virginia Tech. They worked together at Wisconsin-Platteville for two years and then at Wofford. Before coming to Blacksburg, Whitehead was the nickels coach at Southern Miss.
One way to get a staff to be on the same page is bringing in coaches that are familiar with one another and that is the case with some of these hirings. Cannon Montgomery is the son of new offensive coordinator Philip. Cannon was a graduate assistant at Auburn and was at Tulsa. The more familiarity the better and the easier the transition will be in terms of getting things running this spring.
These moves are something that needed to be done
The first round of hiring for Pry, he surrounded himself with some coaches who were inexperienced at some of the positions they were hired for. Boy did that show. Now, he's brought in coaches with a lot more experience for the position they're being hired for and that should make a big difference.
Let's face it, this is going to be a huge season for Pry and some of these hires are proving that. There is going to be a different look and hopefully it leads to better results on the field for both the team and Pry in terms of the future of the program.