I'm told that Virginia is unlikely to announce the selection of Gregg Brandon as offensive coordinator until Friday at the earliest but my source tells me it's a "done deal."
It all seems so creepy. First, UVa hires a new radio voice from Colorado Springs, Colo. Then, five months later, the Cavaliers get an offensive coordinator from Colorado Springs.
"I had no idea," said radio voice Dave Koehn, who is nearly 20 years younger than Brandon. "You got me on that one."
I've been told that Tom Dienhart from rivals.com is the ranking authority on Brandon. I've known Dienhart since his days as an editor with The Sporting News, when I occasionally did some work for that publication.
"I think it's a very good hire for Virginia and, from what I understand, Virginia was his first target as well," Dienhart said Thursday. "He was the first guy Virginia offered and he took it."
UVa, Illinois and Mississippi State were the schools that were most interested in Brandon, 52.
Why not Illinois, where head coach Ron Zook may have a little more security than Groh?
"Good question," Dienhart said. "I think Zook was still weeding and wading through some stuff. I think Virginia was the first offer on the table."
There was some question whether Virginia coach Al Groh would return in 2009 so there was the question of employment past 2010, leading Dienhart to wonder if Brandon received a multi-year contract. That could be a possibility.
Brandon spent the past six seasons as the head coach at Bowling Green, but, before that, he was the Falcons' offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer.
Some have portrayed Brandon as a Meyer disciple, but he is eight years younger than Meyer.
"I think his indoctrination with the one-back, spread offense came when he was at Northwestern under Gary Barnett," Dienhart said.
Brandon followed Barnett to Colorado, but, far as I can tell, never worked with current UVa and former Buffaloes' offensive-line coach Dave Borbely. However, they share a Barnett connection.
My fellow Roanoke Times assistant sports editor, Steve Hemphill, is a Colorado native who covered the Big 12 and Mountain West conferences for a suburban Denver newspaper. He shares this evaluation from one of the reporters who covered Colorado when Brandon was the Buffs' passing-game coordinator.
"Brandon, indeed, is a good recruiter, and a very good offensive coach," the CU beat man said. "He handled receivers at CU initially, then became the offensive coordinator for Barnett. He knew his stuff."
It will be interesting to see how Virginia's offensive staff is built around Brandon, who was a receivers coach at virtually every stop until he became an offensive coordinator.
Virginia has an offensive-line coach in Borbely and a receivers coach in Wayne Lineburg. Bob Price coaches the tight ends and also serves as recruiting coordinator. The Cavaliers need to find a quarterbacks coach and a running backs coach.
When it appeared that Virginia would hire Tennessee receivers coach Latrell Scott, which remains a strong possibility, it was speculated that Lineburg could coach the running backs, as he did at Richmond, or the quarterbacks. He was a walk-on quarterback at UVa during his college days.
Presumably, Lineburg would coach the quarterbacks or running backs on an offensive staff that included Brandon, Borbely, Price and Scott. But, what position group would Brandon coach, or would he have a position group?
Actually, there is a running backs coach on the UVa staff, Anthony Poindexter, but it already has been announced that he will be moving to the secondary, Moreover, Groh still needs to hire a defensive-line coach.
Maybe it's not such a bad thing that Virginia didn't get the sixth victory needed for a second-tier bowl. Between recruiting and staff-building, where would Groh have found the time to practice?
