Des Moines Register
11-10-06
Possible candidates have plenty of ties
By RANDY PETERSON
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Connect the dots.
Jamie Pollard became Iowa State's athletic director after eight years as an associate athletic director at Wisconsin.
Among the current high-profile assistant football coaches he either saw routinely or who have similar Badger roots are Jay Norvell and Paul Chryst, assistants on the staff of former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez.
Pollard already has hired two former Badgers as associate athletic directors at Iowa State - Steve Malchow and David Harris. He's now looking for a football coach.
Will his choice be someone like Norvell, the offensive coordinator at Nebraska and a former assistant at Iowa State?
Will it be Chryst, offensive coordinator at Wisconsin who was at the university when Pollard was there?
Will it be someone out of the Nebraska family - someone like Denver Broncos tight ends coach Tim Brewster?
"I'm not going to speculate on anything like that," Pollard said late Wednesday after Dan McCarney announced he was leaving as Iowa State's coach after the Nov. 18 game against Missouri at Jack Trice Stadium.
McCarney has led the program 12 years.
Pollard, university President Gregory Geoffroy and Harris will head the search. A search firm may be hired later, Pollard said.
"There's no timetable," Pollard said.
Brewster, a former aide to Mack Brown at Texas and an all-Big Ten tight end at Illinois in 1983 and '84, became linked to the Iowa State position through Internet chat.
He told a reporter from the Denver Post that he has not been contacted by anyone claiming to represent Iowa State.
Candidates beyond the present staff with ties to either Iowa State, Pollard or the state of Iowa include:
Norvell, Chryst, and former Iowa State assistant coaches Steve Loney, Bob Elliott and Paul Rhoads.
Loney, offensive line coach for the Arizona Cardinals, is an Iowa State graduate. He served two terms as McCarney's offensive coordinator - 1995-'97 and 2000-'01.
"I'm contractually obligated to the Arizona Cardinals," said Loney, whose deal has a year to go with the NFL team. "It's no secret, though, about my love for Iowa State and the community."
Elliott, defensive coordinator at San Diego State, was a McCarney assistant in 2000 and '01.
Rhoads, defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh, was McCarney's secondary coach from 1995-99. He is an Ankeny native.
Elliott preferred not to comment on his interest in the job. Rhoads could be reached. Norvell spoke in general terms.
"Dan's a great friend of mine and I'm very disappointed to hear what happened," Norvell said Thursday.
Norvell knows the state of Iowa - he was on McCarney's staff from 1995-97, he played at Iowa from 1982-85, coached at Iowa in 1986 and '87, and coached at Northern Iowa in 1988.
"It seems like I've coached at every school in the state of Iowa," Norvell said. "I got married in Ames. My wife graduated from there."
Like most coaches, Norvell stopped short of politicking for the position through the media.
"I've worked a long time to get into position to become a head coach," Norvell said. "I've been around a lot of great people and coaches, including Dan McCarney.
"I'd be excited to be a head coach at the right place, but right now, we're in the middle of a championship hunt at Nebraska."