Auburn Head Coach Gus Malzahn hired Herb Hand as his offensive line coach Monday.
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“My family and I are extremely excited to join the Auburn football family and be a part of a program with such great tradition and history”, Hand said in a released statement. “We’re especially excited to rejoin Coach Malzahn and work with him again”. And Hand said the opportunity to work with Malzahn, “Was way too good to pass up”.
Hand spent the previous two seasons with James Franklin at Penn State. The Nittany Lions were 117th in the country in rushing offense in 2014, and quarterback Christian Hackenberg was sacked 82 times in 2014 and ’15.
Malzahn became OC at Auburn after the ’08 season, and head coach there after the 2011 season.
Hand coached at Tulsa from 2009-2012, serving as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.
“I’m excited to be teaming up with Coach Hand again after working together for two years at Tulsa where we were very successful offensively”, Malzahn said.
Franklin promoted co-defensive coordinator Brent Pry to defensive coordinator Sunday, leaving the Lions with a defensive coach and now another offensive assistant to hire in the coming weeks. In fact, one of the first moves he had to make was to move players from the defensive line to the offensive side just to have enough depth.
(Auburn, Ala.) – Penn State coach James Franklin is dealing with more changes to his coaching staff.
At the time, Franklin had already made one staffing move since the regular season ended by firing John Donovan and replacing him with Joe Moorhead. “I don’t want them to ever leave for lateral moves”.
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Another Penn State assistant coach appears set to join the SEC – the second of such decisions in the last three days. While the game of musical chairs being played in the coaching universe has mostly settled down, Auburn found itself with a sudden opening at OL coach after J.B. Grimes reportedly flew the coop to Cincinnati on Monday. It’s unknown who will fill Hand’s role coaching the offensive line and Shoop’s role coaching the safeties.
