Boise State’s new coaches excited for ‘elite brand’; NFL team asks to interview Kellen Moore
New Boise State defensive line coach Frank Maile had to correct himself from saying “they” instead of “we” when talking about the Broncos on Thursday during his introductory press conference.
He was a player at Utah State from 2003 to 2007 and spent 10 years on the Aggies’ coaching staff in charge of everything from tight ends to recruiting the entire state of Utah. He was named Boise State’s new defensive line coach Wednesday and will serve as assistant head coach under Andy Avalos, who just held his own introductory press conference on Sunday.
“This is an elite national brand here at Boise State, and I’m excited to be here and be part of the family,” Maile told reporters. “It’s like the Alabama of the Mountain West. Everything goes through Boise State.”
Maile and new strength coach Reid Kagy were introduced Thursday. Maile replaces Spencer Danielson, who was announced as defensive coordinator on Tuesday. Kagy replaces Jeff Pitman, who followed former Boise State coach Bryan Harsin to Auburn.
Boise State also announced Thursday that Da’Vell Winters, who followed Avalos from Oregon, will serve as his chief of staff, and the addition of two assistant strength and conditioning coaches: Brandon Pietrzyk and Lucas White.
Winters was on the plane with Avalos and his family when it landed in Boise last Saturday, and the Broncos’ new head coach confirmed in his introductory press conference that Winters would join the staff.
He spent the past three years as an assistant director of player personnel and development at Oregon. His duties included assisting recruits with their transition into college and being a liaison between football and academics, alumni, compliance, parents, student-athlete development and medical personnel.
Pietrzyk spent last year as a strength and conditioning quality control coach at Oregon, and White was an assistant athletic performance coach at San Jose State.
“Bronco Nation is going to love these guys,” Avalos said in a press release. “Da’Vell is an amazing human being, and has the ability to connect with everyone that touches this program, from student-athletes to coaches and staff. He cares about people, he cares about this program and he cares about this community.”
Maile, 38, and Avalos have known each other for years through the coaching profession, having run into one another on the recruiting trail and attended the same camps.
Avalos was a player at Boise State when Maile was suiting up at Utah State, and they were both graduate assistants around the same time. They’ve come close to joining the same staff a couple times, according to Maile, who said when he saw Avalos was a serious candidate for the Broncos’ job, he knew the timing was right.
“I think when you meet people in general, you can kind of feel who they are and what they’re about,” Maile said. “In this profession, you not only want to be around good ball coaches, you want to be around good people, because that usually leads to success.”
Maile’s exit at Utah State was somewhat forced after all of former Aggies coach Gary Andersen’s assistants were let go in December once new head coach Blake Anderson was hired and began building his staff.
Maile was named the Aggies’ interim coach after Andersen was fired last November. Several players went to Utah State President Noelle Crockett to voice their support for him to become the next head coach, but it was during that meeting that Crockett allegedly made statements that players took as showing a religious or cultural bias.
Despite the outcome, Maile was touched that his players would fight for him.
“Family is everything to me. Family is the most important unit in society,” he said. “For those guys to go stand on the table for me, it meant the world to me. It showed how much they loved me, and that love was reciprocated.”
Maile didn’t picture his exit from Utah State being shrouded in controversy the way it was, but said what he learned during his second stint as the Aggies’ interim coach will serve him well with the Broncos. He was also the interim coach before Andersen was hired in 2018.
“I tried to stay focused on what was most important, and that was the players,” he said. “I think anytime you stay focused through adversity, there’s growth.”
Maile said he and Avalos haven’t had much time to talk scheme because they’ve been busy interviewing staff candidates, which creates a pretty clear picture of how much input he’ll have.
He did say the Broncos will continue with their 3-4 scheme, and the STUD position isn’t going anywhere. He said there will be some similarities to what Boise State has run in the past and to what he ran at Utah State.
Most of all, he said his unit will play a “very violent brand of football.”
“I take pride in our body of work and what we do and how we do it and how we go about our business,” Maile said. “It’s a mentality and a lifestyle. It’s not just a Saturday deal for us. I’m going to try to create a mentality for how these guys live their lives.”
Maile takes over a unit that was ravaged by injuries last season. Versatile defensive end Dimitri Washington was lost for the season in game two at Air Force. Reserve linemen Keeghan Freeborn and Herbert Gums were lost to season-ending injuries, and starting nose tackle Scale Igiehon was slowed by nagging injuries for much of the year.
That was all on top of the effect COVID-19 had on the unit. The Broncos only dressed five interior defensive linemen and asked offensive lineman Ben Dooley to play on defense in a home win over Colorado State thanks to injuries, positive tests and contact tracing.
The good news is the whole defensive line should be back this year, including junior college transfers Shane Irwin and Divine Obichere. Irwin led the Broncos last season with six sacks, and Obichere filled in admirably for Igiehon.
Maile will also fill a key role when it comes to recruiting, especially in Utah, where he has recruited for years, and among his fellow Polynesians.
“I’m very confident in my ties and connections in the state of Utah from top to bottom, from Logan to St. George,” he said. “With my connections and ties there with the Polynesian community and how elite this logo is and the power it brings, I’m very confident in being able to bring the guys that fit here and can help us play at a high level.”
‘It’s an elite weight room’
Kagy made stops at Toledo, Cincinnati, Iowa State and Oregon before joining Avalos’ staff, but he said it was a no-brainer.
“Boise State is an elite program. It’s a national brand,” Kagy told reporters Thursday. “It could have been anywhere across the country with coach Avalos. He’s just that good of a coach and a person when it comes down to it.”
He’s been pretty much living in the Broncos’ weight room the past couple days, and he said the facilities at Boise State compare well to anywhere he’s been.
“It’s an elite weight room,” he said. “This weight room is on par with weight rooms across the country.”
He has a degree in nutritional science from Ohio State, and he said his focus is on preparing players for the demands of their position and teaching them how to use their strength instead of just making them stronger.
“I think the piece that’s most important for us is that we’re training football players,” Kagy said. “I’ve seen a lot of guys who are able to bench press 400 or 500 pounds and they still get put on their back.”
As an assistant strength coach at Iowa State from 2016 to 2018, Kagy said he got in on the ground floor of a rebuild under coach Matt Campbell, and he learned a lot about establishing a culture. As an assistant at Oregon the past two years, he learned how to develop relationships.
“If you build that relationship, it gets a lot easier to tell them to do some of the things they may not want to do,” Kagy said.
Eagles interested in Moore
The Philadelphia Eagles have requested permission to interview Dallas offensive coordinator Kellen Moore for their head coaching vacancy, the Cowboys announced Thursday morning on Twitter.
The Eagles fired Doug Pederson on Monday after the team finished 4-11-1 this season, missing the playoffs.
Moore was hired as the Cowboys quarterbacks coach in 2018 and promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019. Dallas led the NFL that season with 431.5 yards a game.
A former quarterback at Boise State, Moore posted an NCCA-record 50 wins during his college career and is the only player in program history who was a Heisman Trophy finalist. He was a candidate to replace Harsin at his alma mater, but opted to sign a contract extension with the Cowboys instead.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 3:55 PM.
