Texas Football: Grading Sark’s coaching staff hires so far
2) Grading Sark’s Texas football staff hires so far
Terry Joseph, DB’s
One of the more popular positional coaches under Herman’s direction with the Longhorns for the past year or so was cornerbacks coach Jay Valai. It did seem like there was a chance that Valai stuck around on the Forty Acres as one of the few retained assistant coaches on Sark’s staff. But that’s not what wound up happening this week.
Valai started out his college football coaching run at the Power Five level just two seasons ago, as the cornerbacks coach under then head coach Chris Ash (and former first-year Texas defensive coordinator/safeties coach) with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. And now Valai will be looking for yet another coaching job after a one year stint with a Power Five program following his departure from the Forty Acres.
The replacement for Valai and/or Ash among the positional coaches does look to be a good one by most indications. Former Notre Dame Fighting Irish safeties coach Terry Joseph is set to take on a similar role with the Longhorns now.
Joseph is a very experienced positional coach at the FBS level. His run as an assistant at the Power Five level started when he was hired as a graduate assistant by former head coach Les Miles and the LSU Tigers back during the 2006 season. He held various assistant roles over the next 10-15 years with blue bloods including the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Tennessee Volunteers, and Notre Dame. He was also a defensive backs coach under Kevin Sumlin for three years with the rival Texas A&M Aggies.
From what we know Joseph is a very good recruiter at his respective positions. Texas was up and down in recruiting defensive backs of late, so the addition of Joseph could be key. But it did look like Valai was definitely on the right track as the Texas cornerbacks coach.