Boise State to hire Andy Avalos

  The vacancy at the top of the Boise State football program appears to be filled with the reported hiring of Oregon defensive coordinator Andy Avalos.

Boise State has a track record of hiring coaches with a past connection to the Bronco program and the hiring of Avalos is no exception as Avalos played and coached for Boise State before leaving for Oregon before the 2019 season to take the Ducks defensive coordinator position,

The thirty-nine-year-old Avalos was voted one of the thirty players in Boise State history in a vote in 2016 after his playing career that saw him lead the Broncos in tackles in three seasons from 2002-04.

Avalos was a defensive assistant at Boise State from 2012-18, holding the defensive coordinator spot for the final three seasons of his time at Boise under Bryan Harsin, Harsin's departure for Auburn opened up the head coach position for the Broncos.

Avalos was the clear choice after the other major candidate, Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, decided to withdraw from consideration after signing a contract extension with the Cowboys.

Avalos will have to fill out much of his staff as many of Harsin's assistants and support staff have followed him to Auburn.

Normally, one would think that would be a given, but at a program such as Boise the connections to the program are more important than in many places, but with a newly hired athletic director (Jeremiah Dickey) that doesn't have a history with the university, many of Harsin's staff may have decided to head south and not wait for the hiring of the next head coach.

Boise State also usually hires coaches that don't have head coaching experience or very little if they do have a history.

If you move back to the beginning of Boise State's D-I era, only two head coaches had previous head coaching experience and in each case (Houston Nutt 1997 and Bryan Harsin), the newly hired leader had only one year of experience (Nutt at D-1AA Murray State and Harsin at Arkansas State) and the hiring of Avalos fits with that.

For all of the success that Boise State has had, they still aren't going to win battles for proven candidates even if they wanted to go after such a coach.

Andy Avalos seems to check the boxes for a Boise State, but he's coming into a program at a difficult time.

While Boise State has still had success in recent years, the Broncos haven't grabbed the coveted Group of Five spot in the New Years Bowl series since 2014 in Bryan Harsin's first season and despite winning their Mountain West division in each of the most recent four seasons, the Broncos have only won two of those four title games.

Boise State fans expect a little more from the program and while I wouldn't say that the Broncos have been underperforming of late, there hasn't been the occasional high point since 2014.

No matter the program's tradition, a G-5 school can never afford to stagnate and one hire that doesn't work out can set a program back for years and hurt a brand that few schools in the G-5 have.

I don't think that Andy Avalos is that hire that doesn't work out.

Avalos knows Boise, the community, the program, and what they need to do to succeed and that's a huge help to him.

However, if he would happen to not work out, at the G-5 level no matter your tradition, you can hit the floor with a thud- take a look at Bowling Green for an example of hitting that bottom and not bouncing back.

Back later with either a Browns preview against the Steelers, the Cavaliers in Milwaukee, or both.

We'll just wait and see.