[Update]: It's now official, per the school. Press release coming soon. --GoBR--
January 4th marks the end of the recruiting dead period for college football, a time when college assistants hit the road to attempt to secure the commitments in the previous class and look ahead and begin to get serious about the next recruiting class. Combined with the bowl season drawing to an end, it's no surprise that Mack Brown is now getting serious about getting his assistant coaches in place leading up to the Texas Junior Days in February.
The announcement of Darrell Wyatt's hire on Sunday was only the first of five and Alabama DT Bo Davis is now reportedly the second staff member to accept a position in Austin. Davis flew into town yesterday to interview with Mack Brown and reports began to surface from several website Tuesday morning - including Hookem, Recruitocosm, and Orangebloods -- that Davis had accepted the same position at Texas. The school has not yet made an official announcement.
Davis has spent the previous four seasons with Nick Saban coaching at Alabama and has been with Saban every year but one since 2002, when he joined the LSU staff. A defensive lineman for LSU who graduated in 1993, Davis entered the coaching profession as a graduate assistant at LSU before becoming an assistant coach at Galena Park North Shore high school, the Houston-area powerhouse that has produced several current and former Longhorns. Davis then went back to Baton Rouge to re-join the LSU staff.
Besides helping produce top-10 rush defenses at Alabama in each of the last three seasons, including finishing second in the country in those categories in 2008 and 2009, Davis also has extensive experience as a strength and conditioning coach. In fact, when he first joined LSU as a graduate assistant, it was as a member of the strength and conditioning program. When he re-joined LSU, it was also in a capacity as a strength and conditioning coach, the same role he filled when he was with Saban in the NFL.
It's unlikely at this point that he would have any official position in the strength and conditioning program at Texas, but he could have some input on what Mad Dog is doing or at least provide some fresh ideas to the man who is now the most stale member of the coaching staff. Recruitocosm continues to report that Madden could be re-assigned within the athletic department and Davis' ties to LSU could help land someone like Tommy Moffitt if Madden is indeed given another position.
Like Wyatt, Davis, 40, is a young, energetic coach with a strong history of success and some ties to the state. Though he doesn't have the deep connections of the native Texan Wyatt (Davis is from Mississippi), Davis' time at North Shore should help Texas high school coaches recognize Davis as one of their own and that should be an advantage on the coaching trail.
Cal defensive tackles coach Tosh Lupoi was probably the biggest name out there, but given that Lupoi had no connections to the state of Texas, an argument could easily be made that Davis is a nearly perfect candidate for this position since he's from the Saban coaching tree, which is highly valued these days in college football, and his ties to the state of Texas for recruiting purposes make him a "slam-dunk" hire like Wyatt.
With two hires now in place, it's extremely difficult to find fault with either and that's positive news for a football program that hasn't had many positive things happen to it since Colt McCoy's injury in the national championship game nearly a year ago.