College football defensive coordinator steps down 9 days before season opener
It’s not often that you get a coordinator stepping down less than a month before the season begins. This August, we’ve had two of them.
Old Dominion’s Dave Patenaude resigned on Friday, August 12th out of seemingly nowhere. On Thursday, it happened just north of Virginia in Connecticut.
The Huskies defensive coordinator Lou Spanos decided to step away from the program, the Associated Press reported. No details were given for his decision to step away and a replacement wasn’t named. After former head coach Randy Edsall was let go during the 2021 season, Spanos was named interim head coach, leading the team to a 1-11 record.
Spanos spent the 2018 season on staff at Alabama, and that came after he served as the linebackers coach for the Tennessee Titans from 2014-18. Before the Titans, Spanos was the defensive coordinator on head coach Jim Mora’s staff at UCLA during the 2012 and 2013 seasons, so that was a natural reunion with the Huskies.
This puts new head coach Jim Mora Jr. in a rough spot going into his first season. In just 9 days, the Huskies will begin their season at Utah State, with staff changes expected in the mean time.