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f o o t b a l l HAZELL'S quality assistant coaches A PRIORITY STAFF Purdue determined to attract, keep BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com D arrell Hazell was hired as Purdue's new football coach for a lot of reasons. But one of the most important, but least apparent, is this: The former Kent State coach and Ohio State assistant's potential to assemble an outstanding staff. Such was an absolute priority for Purdue as it sought its replacement for Danny Hope. Purdue has long been known as a program that's been behind its peers in terms of compensation for assistant coaches and staff, making it difficult to attract top coaches to West Lafayette, but even more so to keep them. Examples are there of high-quality assistant coaches who've worked for Joe Tiller or Hope leaving for the same jobs elsewhere, only for significantly more money. Those days may not be completely over, but Purdue is determined to make sure they're fewer and farther between as it moves forward under Hazell, who's been given significantly improved resources with which to put together his first Purdue staff. Kent State WHO'S NEXT? Not much is known thus far about new Purdue coach Darrell Hazell's search for his first Boilermaker staff, outside of the fact that he's clearly in no hurry. Hazell's stance has been that he would be thorough in his search, with the emphasis on getting "the right guys." Blue-chip quarterback recruit Danny Etling, who'll enroll at Purdue in a matter of weeks, came away from his first meeting with Hazell with no inkling as to who the program's offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach might be. "He said he didn't want to really say a whole lot about that," Etling said, "because there are still so many jobs at stake and people worrying about whether they'll have a job or not, so he didn't want to let that out and I was fine with that." Hazell first spoke with each current Boilermaker coach left over from Danny Hope's staff, though it remains to be seen whether any of them will be retained. The possibility always exists that he could bring some of his Kent State coaches with him, but if that's going to happen, it hasn't yet. Golden Flashes offensive coordinator and former Purdue assistant coach Brian Rock would seem to be a logical hire off the Kent State staff, while linebackers coach Marcus Freeman is another coach many believe might accompany Hazell to Purdue. Defensive coordinator and former Youngstown State head coach Jon Heacock could, also. A name on the defensive side to watch could be Taver Johnson at Arkansas, a former colleague of Hazell's at Ohio State now seemingly displaced by Bret Bielema's hiring in Fayetteville. Paul Haynes, another former assistant at Arkansas, might have been an option, but he reportedly is taking Hazell's place at Kent State. Johnson, the Razorbacks' linebackers coach and assistant head coach this past season and their interim head coach for a period of time in the spring, was the cornerbacks coach for the Buckeyes for five seasons under Jim Tressel. — Brian Neubert 16 • Gold & Black IllustrateD • volume 23, issue 3 The hires Darrell Hazell makes for his stable of assistant coaches will go a long way in determing the ultimate success of Boilermaker football on his watch. He plans to take his time to make the right hiring decisions as he builds his staff for the 2013 season. In addition to paying its next coach at least $2 million per year, Purdue's put together a $2.1-million salary pool for his nine assistant coaches. That's an increase of 30 percent over what Hope's last staff earned and a total Purdue hopes will make it competitive in a marketplace set by the free-wheeling spending of the SEC, where coordinators get paid the way head coaches in other BCS conferences do, routinely approaching seven-figure salaries. In the Big Ten, Greg Mattison and Luke Fickell — defensive coordinators at Michigan and Ohio State, respectively; Fickell is also the Buckeyes' former interim head coach, affecting his compensation — have contracts that pay them $750,000 per year, a half million more than the $250,000 paid to first-year Purdue coordinator Tim Tibesar for the 2012 season. Whether Purdue will, or can, close that gap remains to be seen, but at the very least it wants to make the disparity less glaring. "We've doubled down," athletic director Morgan Burke termed it while introducing Hazell. GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com