Turns out Jason Gesser will be coaching on the Palouse next season, but he won't be doing so with the Washington State Cougars. After all the hub-bub about Gesser joining the Washington State staff as some kind of assistant, albeit unpaid, Gesser turned around and took a job on Idaho head coach Robb Akey's staff as a running back coach. It's an incredibly weird turn of events that came out of the blue, especially after he gushed over coming back to Pullman.
Here's the press release from the Vandals, with happy quotes from Akey and Gesser.
"It really is a dream come true working for a guy like that," Gesser said of Akey. "I've been trying for the last handful of years to see if he'd let me join his staff and I finally got him to bite. I've seen his kids grow in front of my eyes and I'm very close with his family. I've spent a lot of time with him not only as a player but since he's been coaching at Idaho."
Again, this is a ridiculously weird chain of events, but here's what happened. Gesser left Eastside Catholic, where he was the head coach, to join the Washington State staff. At the same time, Eastside Catholic hired Idaho running backs coach Jeremy Theilbahr as its head coach. With an opening on staff, Gesser changed course, lobbying for the Idaho job instead of the position at Washington State.
Gesser will recruit the Washington and Hawaii area, according to the Spokesman-Review. This is all just too weird to process, but there you have it.