New coaching staff is in place

As I mentioned in my previous post about new coach Tony Reno, the new coaching staff is in place. The staff will be officially announced tomorrow but here it is:

Offensive coordinator - Kevin Morris: Former UMass head coach had a total of nine years as the offensive coordinator at the I-AA or FCS level with four years at Northeastern followed by five years at UMass before he ascended to the head coaching spot at UMass in 2009. UMass had a 43-19 record and made a trip to the 2006 national championship game during his time as the offensive coordinator.
Defensive coordinator - Rick Flanders: Returns to the coordinating role he held for 12 seasons under Yale coach Jack Siedlecki. Flanders spent the last three seasons coaching defensive backs on Tom Williams' staff. During the 2007 and 2008 seasons, Flanders was the coordinator of a Yale defense which led the FCS in scoring defense.

Here is the rest of the staff listed alphabetically:
Kris Barber, tight ends: A former quarterback at Yale, Barber comes to Yale after spending one season on Tim Murphy's staff at Harvard. Before helping the Crimson winning the 2011 Ivy League title, he spent three seasons at Colorado School of Mines.
Kevin Cahill, special teams coordinator/wide receivers: Cahill spent the last three seasons coaching special teams at the University of Maine. He also had stints coaching running backs and receivers during his four years in Maine.

Larry Ciotti, running backs: Another member of Siedlecki's staff to return to the fold. Ciotti's first season at Yale was 1991 and he helped Rashad Bartholomew become Yale's all-time leading rusher. Ironically, that mark was broken by Robert Carr and then Mike McLeod, both who were coached by Ciotti's. Ciotti won five state titles during a 19-year run as the head coach at Hand High before coming to Yale.

Joe Conlin, associate head coach/run game coordinator/offensive line: One of three coaches Reno hired off of Harvard's staff, Conlin helped the University of New Hampshire to seven straight NCAA tournament appearances before joining Harvard in 2011.
Dave Petzing, outside linebackers: Spent the last two years as a graduate assistant on the Boston College staff and in 2009 was a volunteer assistant at Harvard. His coaching career begin as a student volunteer assistant coach at Middlebury when injuries ended his playing career.
Steven Vashel,, defensive backs: Another member of the staff with stints at Harvard and Maine. Vashel spent the last three seasons coaching defensive backs at Maine and he helped the Black Bears lead the Colonial Athletic Association in pass defense. Vashel got his start coaching in college at Trinity in 1991 and three years later was on the staff at Harvard.
Dwayne Wilmot, recruiting coordinator/defensive line: Another member of the 2011 Ivy League champion Harvard staff, Wilmot spent five seasons holding down both positions at Maine, the school where he was a standout wide receiver.

Catching up with Tony Reno

With a little bit of a break in my schedule, I was able to sit down with Yale head coach Tony Reno for the first time since the press conference announcing him as the 34th coach in Yale football history. Many of the highlights from the interview are available in this video.

With tomorrow being the one-month anniversary of his official appointment, it seemed to be the perfect time to run a story documenting what it's been like for Reno since getting hired. While I don't intend on rehashing everything that's going to be in the story (since that would defeat the purpose of filing a story), there's some other info that didn't make it into the piece that I can share with you.

First of all, Reno said he has been thrilled with the attitude of the returning players and couldn't say enough good things about the leadership being shown by team captain Will McHale.

Reno said that Yale will line up defensively in a 3-4. The move makes sense since other than Chris Dooley, Yale is left with a lot of unproven players at defensive tackle while the return of McHale, Wes Moyer (who is coming back for a fifth season of eligibility), Brian Leffler, Will Vaughn and Ruan Falbo gives the Bulldogs plenty of options at linebacker.

With three players back who started at offensive tackle (Roy Collins, Wes Gavin and Ben Carbery) and the loss of both starting guards, Reno did not rule out the possibility to moving one of the tackles inside.

The coaching staff is pretty much in place but is not being officially announcement until later this week, according to Reno. Rick Flanders is the only holdover among the assistant coaches and is moving back to being defensive coordinator. Reno also hired Kris Barber, Joe Conlin and Dwayne Wilmot off the Harvard staff he was a part of for the last three years. He addressed the talk that Murphy was a little perturbed with Reno snaring three assistants but Reno said his relationship with Murphy continues to be a good one. Multiple sources have confirmed to me that Larry Ciotti is expected to return to the role of running backs coach he held under Jack Siedlecki.

Finally, spring camp begins on Mar. 28 with the spring game being held on Apr. 21. One change from the Williams' tenure is that the Blue-White game will be exactly that - a game. Williams looked at it as a glorified practice while Reno said the plan will be to have the No. 1 offense and No. 2 defense on one squad and No. 1 defense and No. 2 offense on the other and let the teams go at it.

Former Yale QB among new assistant coaches

According to a report in the Harvard Crimson, Harvard assistant coaches Kris Barber, Joe Conlin and Dwayne Wilmot have been hired by new Yale head coach Tony Reno.

Barber is a former Yale quarterback who spent one season as the receivers coach at Harvard. He cut his teeth at Division II Colorado School of Mines where he was the passing-game coordinator for a program which reached the Division II playoffs in 2010.

Conlin came to Harvard last season to coach the offensive line after spending seven seasons on the staff at New Hampshire where he had stints coaching the safeties, defensive line and offensive line.

Wilmot, also a first-year coach at Harvard in 2011, coached the defensive line for the Crimson after spending five seasons as the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator at Maine. There's no word what positions the three will have at Yale.

Reno, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant at Harvard, was hired earlier this month as the 34th coach in Yale football history. Defensive backs coach Rick Flanders was the only assistant coach retained by Reno.

Latest on new Yale commit

It's didn't take long for Tony Reno to make his presence felt in recruiting circles.

There have been a couple of comments posted to my blog from parents of players who committed to Yale after being a part of the group of about 15 recruits who visited campus last week.

The father of Austin Carter got in touch with me and confirmed that he has committed to Yale.

Carter is a native of Vero Beach, Florida who was just 5-foot-10 and 162 pounds at the end of his junior season. He is now 6-1 and 222 with a 33-inch vertical leap and played linebacker/h-back last season as a postgraduate at Choate.

According to his father, Austin had 92 tackles, 9.5 sacks, 15 tackles for losses and two interceptions at linebacker and as a fullback he averaged 7 yards per carry and nearly 20 yards per catch at Choate.

Carter drew interest from pretty much every Ivy League team with Penn, Princeton and Dartmouth pushing hard. David Carter said that his son took a visit to Penn the weekend before heading to Yale and the Quakers were in the lead. However, when he visited Yale and met with Reno.

Choate has formed a nice relationship with Yale in recent years with five players in Yale's freshman and sophomore classes on the Yale roster including starting offensive tackle Roy Collins and defensive end Allen Davis.

I have reached out to the Choate coaches to check up on Carter and some of the others who have been on Yale's recruiting radar (Mattew Porter, Avery Lewis, Kyle Nolan).

I also contacted St. Igantius coach Chuck Kyle to get to update on Eric Williams, who was the top quarterback target of the previous Yale staff. Kyle said "at this point in the process, Yale University is at the top of Eric's list.  I am sure now that the coach is in place, the situation will be clarified very soon."
 
Two of Williams' brothers played football at Yale. Sean Williams is a former starter at defensive end/linebacker while Scott Williams will be a senior on the 2012 Yale team. Scott Williams came to Yale as a quarterback but was moved to defense is now listed as a linebacker.
 
As for Eric Williams, he led St. Ignatius out of Cleveland to the Ohio Division I title, passing for 297 yards including two touchdowns in a 34-13 win over Pickerington Central in the state championship game. Williams finished with 2,132 yards and 23 touchdowns. The Ohio Division I state final was televised and I was very impressed with the way Williams threw the ball. Williams is 6-3 and 190 pounds and according to his recruiting profile on rivals.com, he has been offered by Cincinnati and Eastern Michigan.
 
Williams moved to Cleveland from Oregon where he lived with his mom and other family members including his brother Sean. As a junior at Jesuit High in Portland, he threw for 1,405 yards with 13 touchdowns and five interceptions.
 
With the graduation of record-breaking QB Patrick Witt and no quarterbacks brought in during the most recent recruiting class, securing an impact quarterback is a priority. Williams would most certainly hit the criteria.

Also, I just got off the phone with one of my Yale sources who confirmed that reports of every assistant coach except Rick Flanders being let go is indeed accurate. My source did not hear of any names of potential replacements but I imagine that Reno will be moving quickly to put a new staff in place.

Time for Yale football program to move forward

There's no way of sugar coating it, the last two months have been perhaps the most trying and humbling in the proud history of the Yale football program.

The removal of Tom Williams as the head coach over issues surrounding the accuracy of his credentials, back to back days when Yale lost to Harvard in the junior varsity and varsity games by a combined score of 82-13 and concerns among alumni who the process of finding a new coach was handled has resulted in some frayed nerves and discontent for some parties.

The good news is that Tony Reno, who was named the 34th coach in Yale's illustrious history, could be the type of galvanizing figure to help Yale put the recent checkered past in the rear-view mirror.

You could see the relief in the faces of the returning Yale players who were in attendance at the press conference now that he have a head coach. The players have been thrust into a situation not of their making. Yesterday was the first time I saw any of them since the end of the season but people I've spoken to who run into them on campus say that they have been understandably downtrodden. Hopefully last night's team meeting with Reno helped perk up the returning players. McHale, who got a know Reno a little bit when he was being recruiting as a high school senior, sounded fired up about the ability to move forward with Reno at the helm.

"I firmly believe he is the right guy for the job, he has everything we are looking for and more," McHale said. "He is a dynamic leader, he's a motivator, an excellent recruiter. I really couldn’t be more excited."

On the other end of the spectrum is the fate of former head coach Tom Williams. Former head coach Jack Siedlecki was welcomed back for the press conference and Carm Cozza would have been there had he not headed down to his place in Florida for the winter.

Williams, who was forced to resign, was obviously not there. The only staff members I saw where the holdovers from the Jack Siedlecki regime as the rest of the coaching staff watched the live stream of the press conference from the Yale football offices.

"It is tough that something like that happened," McHale said. "We are all appreciative of what Coach Williams brought to this program but at the same time what's done in done and we need to look forward."

Reno is walking into a difficult situation. Those two months without a head coach came during a pivotal time in recruiting. Other Ivy League coaching staff have been circling around Yale recruiting targets (just as Yale would do if the circumstances were reversed). They've lost out on some kids as a result of the uncertainty including Cheshire's Sebastian Little, who committed to Harvard. Although Reno, who helped the Crimson secured Little's commitment, can't talk publicly about a recruit like Little I am sure he sees the irony in how things worked out in that situation and how his efforts as a key recruiter at Harvard cost Yale a prized prospect. That being said, when I spoke the assistant coach Rick Flanders yesterday he thought Yale was not too bad off in terms of recruiting the class they were looking to secure before Williams' ouster.

"It’s trying but it probably more trying for the recruits, their parents," Flanders said. "But 90 percent of the kids who were on the board are still on the board. They are looking at Yale for the right reasons and it had to do more with the institution and opportunity (to earn a Yale degree) than a specific person. Tony will salvage a great class and we will get this group that is coming back off and running."

At both Reno's press conference and Williams' there have been the standard "how are you going to beat Harvard" question. I know the 45-7 pounding Yale suffered at the hands of the Crimson in November is still fresh on people's minds but in my opinion Yale is not as far behind Harvard as some people might think.

People remember the ill-advised fake punt on 4th and 22 late in the 2009 game which set up Harvard to win the game but neglect to recall that the Bulldogs were in position to win that game before the fake punt ended up six yards shy of the first down which would have enabled Yale to run out the clock. In the 2010 game, won by Harvard 28-21,  Yale outgained Harvard 337-178 and possessed the ball for nearly 38 of the 60 minutes.

Yes, there are some holes to fill especially on defense. You don't lose guys like Jordan Haynes, Geoff Dunham, Jake Stoller, Drew Baldwin (all multiple-year starters) and not miss what they brought to the table. However, Reno vowed to have an aggressive, attacking mindset in offense, defense and special teams. It is sorely needed on defense. Too many times the combination of a lack of a pass rush and soft zone coverage enabled teams to pick the Yale defense apart.

McHale leads a talented group of returning defensive starters which includes sophomore safety Nick Okano and speedy defensive ends Allen Davis and E.J. Conway.

Before Reno begins coaching the Bulldogs, he needs to add to the talent pool. The next two weekend there figures to be close to 30 prospects (somewhere in the vicinity of 15 each weekend) on Yale's campus. Some of them will be the 10-15 commits who have been approved for early admission to Yale and the Bulldogs need to make sure those players are still in the fold while also trying to lock up pledges from the uncommitted players on their radar.

When Yale begins spring practice in April, the focus will be on putting together a team capable of making a run at the Ivy League title.

"Nothing has happened over the last two months that has taken away from our goal of winning an Ivy League championship next year," McHale said.

Reno: "The right man for the job"

I was pleasantly surprised to see not only a flock of Yale football players but also former Yale coach Jack Siedlecki and current assistant coaches Duane Brooks and Rick Flanders at today's press conference announcing Tony Reno as the 34th Yale football coach.

I struck out in my attempt to set up a phone interview with Harvard coach Tim Murphy as he was on the road recruiting but I was able to talk to some people who have a history with Reno.

Flanders, who was the defensive coordinator at Yale when Reno was coaching the defensive backs, was absolutely tremendous talking about Reno and in particular any concerns that his lack of head coaching experience would be an issue.

"He is a good coach, good recruiter, good people person, all the things that you are looking for in a guy who wants to be a head coach," Flanders said. "The diversity and the kind of things that he has done ... People may only look at one part of a resume. Every Hall of Fame coach had to get their first opportunity, they weren’t a head coach when they took their first head-coaching job. He is very well prepared for this and will be a phenomenal job."

Siedlecki was not somebody I was expecting to see but once I saw him there, he was a natural person to talk to about Reno since he was the one who brought him to Yale.

Siedlecki talked of Reno's character and engaging personality but also said he is an intense competitor who will demand production from his players. Siedlecki thinks Reno's six years as an assistant at Yale will be invaluable as he attempts to make up for lost time.

"His relationships with people on campus, that is important, really important," Siedlecki said. "He is going to hit the ground running, he is going to understand the AI (academic index), understand the inner workings at Yale, he knows all the people."

Reno was involved in recruiting many of the players who will be seniors on the 2012 Yale team. Naturally I took the chance to speak to 2012 Yale captain Will McHale about his new coach.

"He was not my primary recruiter but I did speak to him and knew him a little bit through the process," McHale said. "It’s great, I think it is reflected across my class, the seniors interacted with him and to have a guy we are confident in, a guy we are comfortable with really goes a long way towards the immediate success of the program. I think it is one of those things that is going to be great even going forward to next year."

Last but certainly not least, former Yale captain Paul Rice was among those in attendance. Rice, who spent last season as a volunteer assistant coach, was a cornerback earlier in his career so Reno was his position coach.

Like so many others, he gave Reno a glowing endorsement. I asked Rice what qualities will serve Reno the best in his new gig.

"His preparedness, his intensity, his love for Yale. He is passionate about teaching and getting kids to play to the best of their ability. Even guys who weren’t coached by him, guys on the offensive side of the ball they were vouching for him. That speaks to his character to to his ability to lead.",

Tony Reno to be Yale's next coach

OK, let's try this again.

I got burned in a big-time way from a source who confirmed Dave Cecchini to be Yale's next football coach. However, I apologize for putting that out there before I was able to get a secondary confirmation. That same source got back to me to inform me that he was messed up and that it is indeed Tony Reno who will be named head coach.

I apologize to all who trust me and this blog to be the source of accurate information on all things to do with Yale football. You learn to trust your sources and there are times when wires get crossed. I still accept the full brunt of the blame on this. Instead of rushing to get this info out there, I should have held back until I was 100 percent certain of the facts.

Now onto the choice.

Reno was the secondary coach at Yale on Jack Siedlecki's staff. When Siedlecki was forced out, Reno assumed the lead on Yale's recruiting efforts. He would leave to join Tim Murphy's staff at Harvard in large part for family considerations because he, his wife and children live in Sturbidge, Mass.

Reno was a popular coach with his players and in the days following Siedlecki's departure, he was touted as the coach staff as being the top prospect to be considered for the Yale head job.

There are some alumni who have issues with the way Reno left for Harvard and some have suggested that he took some recruits with him. However, Reno received a lot of support in the Yale community - especially from his former players to get the job. If I were to go back and count the blog comments, I would think that Reno would have been the winner of that informal straw poll.

One concern is that Reno has never been an offensive or defensive coordinator above the Division III level but I personally really liked dealing with him in the time when he was on Siedlecki's staff.