Nevada to hire Brian Polian as new head coach, according to report

It has been just over a week send Chris Ault stepped aside as the Nevada head coach, and his replacement has reportedly been found. Bruce Feldman of CBS Sports is reporting that taking the helm is Brian Polian who most recently was Texas A&M's special teams coordinator and tight ends coach. However, as of Saturday night a deal had not been officially reached.

However, Nevada president Marc Johnson would not say a coach has been hired:

"We're not quite there yet," Johnson said. "Nothing has been negotiated or signed. Everything could fall apart and we could have to move on to a No. 2 candidate."

Polian is also an amazing recruiter as he was the recruiting coordinator at Stanford and Notre Dame, and in 2011 he was named one of the top recruiters of 2011 by Max Prep's Tom Lemming and ESPN.com. He also was a key reason that Manti T'eo chose Notre Dame over BYU and others.

So, the question arises: What makes Polian a good hire to be the Nevada head coach? Polian has never been an offensive or defensive coordinator in his coaching career. His primary duties have been recruiting, special teams, running backs coach, linebackers coach or safeties coach.

Looks like Nevada is going after a high energy recruiter and younger head coach; Polian is just 38-years-old. However, making the jump from special teams coach to head coach is a big jump. The most recent example of this is when University of Houston promoted their special teams coach Tony Levine to replace Kevin Sumlin.

The way this can work is if Polian surrounds himself with a good coordinating staff, and since the hiring is not yet official there is no word about who the coordinators will be.

The other known coaching candidates were Arkansas offensive line coach Chris Klenakis, SMU defensive coordinator Tom Mason and Washington State running backs coach Jim Mastro.