Football coaching merrygoround still spinning

Hmm, George O’Leary had a cup of coffee at Notre Dame and now is assistant head coach of the Vikings, thanks to having coached the Vikes’ head coach in high school. O’Leary will also be the defensive line coach, reporting to defensive coordinator Willie Shaw, which sounds odd. Another oddity: Shaw used to be the Raider’s defensive coordinator and a few years ago was mentioned as the best potential head coach out of all the NFL assistants, but he wasn’t even able to get interviews due to CWB (coaching while black); I don’t know what happened between then and now but his name was not mentioned with any job so far this year.

Stanford went in an interesting way with University of Florida offensive coordinator Buddy Teevens. Teevens previous major college head coaching experience was with Tulane where he was fired after going 10-45 in five seasons. However, a big factor seems to be that he’s an FOT–a friend of Ted Leland, the Stanford athletic director. Also, since the Tulane gig he’s spent time working under two highly regarded head coaches, Steve Spurrier and University of Illinois’ Ron Turner. The word on Teevens now is look for a high output offense, something that will work very well against the mostly porous defenses in the Pac-10.

Florida, after being turned down left and right, plucked Ron Zook of the New Orleans Saints staff. Zook, like Teevens, apparently also had the good fortune to be friends with the athletic director who hired him. He’s not an unknown to the Gators after serving as Spurrier’s defensive coordinator from ’91-93 though there is the weirdness of Zook having been demoted to special teams coach for ’94-95.. I have to like his choice of Ed Zaunbrecher for offensive coordinator after Zaunbrecher’s stint in the same job at high scoring Marshall. Some people who count must like the choice: Rex Grossman is going to return and pass up a shot at the NFL this year, though backup QB is transferring to Miami (don’t ask me, doesn’t make a lot of sense here either).

Then, in the NFL, there’s Tampa Bay. Highly regarded and fairly successful Tony Dungy reportedly must win at Philadelphia tomorrow or be replaced by Bill “The Big Tuna” Parcells. I love Parcells for what he did with the Giants but Dungy has done a terrific job even though he’s never had a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback and shouldn’t be on the hot spot.

Another coach looking over his shoulder is Marty Schottenheimer of the Washington Redskins as team officials are reportedly in Gainesville to talk to Steve Spurrier. The ex-Florida coach is also bein wooed by the Carolina Panthers but at least that team had the graciousness to get rid of their previous coach first. Schottenheimer apparently is not interested in resigning and losing out on at least $7 million owed for the rest of his contract. Ol’ Joe Theismann thinks Schottenheimer is the better coach for the Redskins.

Still open: San Diego, Indianapolis, and Carolina. Indy ownership apparently wanted to Jim Mora to stay one more season so they could go after the Raiders’s Jon Gruden. Rumors, though, have Gruden on the outs with Al Davis due to his flirtation with Notre Dame and Florida so perhaps the Irsays will get their wish a little sooner.

This is an update of a previous entry, if you’re tuning in late. More as news develops…