The football coaching staff is starting to take shape as head coach Brian Bohannon named Brian Newberry as the defensive coordinator on Monday.
Newberry is the seventh hire and the sixth assistant coach for Bohannon. He has 14 years of coaching experience in college and has coached in the FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III.
Last season, Newberry was the defensive coordinator at Division II Northern Michigan. The team went 4-7, but he did coach one defensive lineman and three linebackers that were all-conference selections.
Prior to joining Northern Michigan, Newberry was the defensive coordinator at the University of the South in 2011. Before that, he spent four seasons as the defensive backs coach at Elon and five years as the defensive coordinator at Washington & Lee. Newberry also spent one year at Rice as the defensive backs coach and one year at Lehigh at the same position.
“After interviewing several guys, and talking to some more, I just thought he would fit in with this group of (coaches),” Bohannon said on Monday. “He has a tremendous amount of experience coaching at different levels, has been successful with his defensive schemes, and everyone I have spoken to has said he builds great relationships with the student-athletes.”
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While Bohannon is putting together the coaching staff, which is now set until the beginning of 2014, athletics director Vaughn Williams is looking for a conference that the Owls can join in 2015.
Williams said during the Georgia Sports Writers Association meeting last week that he has no intentions to leave the Atlantic Sun Conference and hopes he can join a conference where the Owls can be an associate football member. The likely choices are the Big South, Ohio Valley and the Colonial Athletic Association, but Williams also said that the conference will likely find them before they find it.
In the meantime, Bohannon is on the recruiting trial and is expected to sign 25-30 players in February. He is also holding a camp in July to help the recruiting and will also visit other college programs to learn more about how to run games and practices.
“We’ve already had guys who told me they are coming to school and are waiting on that tryout,” Bohannon told the Marietta Daily Journal. “A lot of men will want to come back closer to home. We will supplement with that and try to get (numbers) up
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