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Butch Jones intends to fill the vacancy left by Tim Banks departure to take the Illinois Defensive Coordinator position at Illinois from within.
Jones said the new defensive coordinator will come from among the trio of defensive backs coach, special teams coach and associate head coach Kerry Coombs, who is also assistant head coach; defensive line coach and assistant head coach Steve Stripling; and linebackers coach John Jancek, who was co-defensive coordinator with Banks, and is UC’s recruiting coordinator.
That is the smarter move by far, and the one that most everyone was anticipating when the Banks news broke. I think that Jancek will wind up being the play caller because he has more experience calling plays at this level than Coombs (who only called plays at the high school level) or Stripling (who has been a DC*, but not for 15 years).
*At Indiana in 1996
That being said I would expect some of those titles you see next to the coaches names to shift around during the process. For the most part those titles are about compensation. Generally the more titles a coach has the more he gets paid. That's why I think Steve Striping winds up with the Co-Coordinator title. He is by far the most in demand of the postion coaches on the UC staff. Giving him that Co-Coordinator title is basically a pay raise, and he deserves it.
The other thing that I think will happen is that with Jancek taking over the role of play caller someone else is going to take the Recruiting Coordinator title because Jancek can't do both. My best guess for the new recruiting coordinator is T.J. Weist who has done a great job for the Bearcats in the South.
Finally there is this.
Jones said. "We’ll name a coordinator from within and then conduct a national search for a position coach. The big thing for us is we’re not going to change schematically. You win with consistency."
Top of the list for qualifications for that next position coach? Recruiting. To me that statement screams "I want to upgrade my recruiting for the class of 2013.