It look like the hiring of Nick Holt yesterday from USC possibly included two other assistant coaches he has worked with in the past according to Football Scoop.
Jeff Mills is a coach who has coached in the secondary most of his career. Mills has coached on the defensive side of the football the past 15 years. In that span he spent eight seasons with the Idaho Vandals, four with Nevada and three at Montana State. He was on Dennis Erickson's last Idaho staff. Most recently he was at Youngstown State under Jon Heacock.
Mike Cox is a LB coach who most recently worked under Scott Linehan for the St. Louis Rams. Cox is a Northwest native who coached under John L.Smith at Idaho, Louisville, and Michigan State.
Cox was a four-year letterman at Idaho from 1983-86 and a three-year starter at linebacker, playing for both Dennis Erickson and Keith Gilbertson. He still ranks among the Vandals’ all-time leaders with 252 career tackles.
What do these two coaches have in common?
They both coached at Idaho in the past and have both been on the same staff as new DC Nick Holt and are part of the Idaho pipleine of coaching talent started by Dennis Erickson.
Football Scoop gets their information from a variety of places including my blog so I am not going to say this information is 100% accurate until it is announced later today at the 12:30 PM press conference. I will say that it sounds pretty plausible when you take a look at the connections and bloodlines.
Last night we heard that Chris Tormey was still trying to get back on the Husky staff as a LB coach. He has had a great relationship with Nick Holt so that is also a possible move that could be made today.
Head Coach Steve Sarkisian said yesterday that the delay in Holt arriving in Seattle wasn't all about the weather. They also had a couple of other things to work out. It could have been potential coaches to fill out the staff.
One thing is for sure though is to expect the defensive side of the coaching staff to be full by this afternoon. You need at least seven coaches to handle recruiting this time of year and the additions of Holt, Cox, and Mills does that.
Usually you go with four defensive coaches including the coordinator but we have heard that UW is considering going with five defensive coaches.
Washington still has plenty of vacancies over on the offensive side. They need to fill the QB,RB,WR, and TE coaching positions. The addition of an extra defensive coach if that is true could mean that Sark will be his own QB coach. OC Jim Michalczik is also going to be handling the offensive line so that takes up a bit of the slack.