Brian has done a great job of breaking down the new hires to Mike Leach's staff and he will have a post later today updating the search, but before then I will pass along this interesting note I found on potential defensive line coach Joe Salave'a.
First, there is this from his Arizona bio page:
A native of Leone, American Samoa, Salave'a has been one of the territory's foremost football ambassadors promoting the game among Samoan youth, including founding a foundation to help introduce the game and strengthen its appeal.
Now you might be thinking great, what does that do for WSU? Well, as you can see in the 60 Minutes video below, the American Samoa is loaded with football talent. Some of the numbers are jaw dropping, 60,000 residents with over 200 FBS football players and over 30 in the NFL.
Mike Leach looks back at Craig James controversy |The Dan Patrick Show | Official Home
Washington State coach Mike Leach joined the show to talk about his new job and the aftermath of the controversy with ESPN’s Craig James.
Another Friday from WSU - SportsLink - Spokesman.com - Dec. 16, 2011
This is the silly season of college football and the fun part of college basketball. The silly comes from the game of musical chairs played by coaches, though it doesn’t seem all that silly to the families involved. The fun comes from the interesting matchups on the court, with schools traveling thousands of miles to play or local schools getting together. Read on.
Pac-12 chat wrap - Pac-12 Blog - ESPN
Andrew (Pullman, WA): Will Mike Leach recruit top players based off of his reputation? Do you see him competing with Sarkisian for top talents in WA? Ted Miller (3:03 PM): Leach was never a top-25 recruiter. He recruits to a system and is a good talent evaluator. But, yes, I do expect him to be able to better compete with Sarkisian for top prospects. And, yes, the buzz around him should help this year.
Leach lures Texas LB - On The Trail Blog - ESPN
OLB Keith Ewing (Bellaire, Texas) was looking for a stable coaching situation and found one at Washington State, the Bellaire Examiner reports. Ewing also held offers from Arkansas, Arizona and Houston, but he was concerned about the coaching vacancies at the latter two.
This was supposed to be a rebuilding year at Washington State, which lost Klay Thompson and DeAngelo Casto who chose to enter the NBA draft and play professionally overseas respectively. However, after a rocky 2-4 start coach Ken Bone has guided the Cougars to a four-game winning streak, which is the longest in the Pac-12.
Former Washington State University Co-Defensive Coordinator Chris Ball has also been named an assistant coach for ASU. In addition to coaching at WSU, Ball has spent time at Pitt and at Alabama. Ball spent the past three seasons at Washington State as Assistant Head Coach, Co-Defensive Coordinator and Safeties coach. He arrived at WSU after spending the 2007 season as secondary coach at Pitt.