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Over the weekend there were reports that Nevada offered Brian Polian to replace legendary coach Chris Ault, but now the Reno Journal-Gazette is reporting that the hire is all but official. All what needs to be decided next is for the Board of Regents to approve the hire this Friday.
Polian has agreed to a five-year contract worth $475,000 per season, which is similar to the amount that Ault made over the past few seasons. While Polian has been a special teams coach and recruiting coordinator for most of his career, so there is reason for concern of him getting the bump to head coach.
However, Polian talks about his impressive list of coaching mentors:
"It is a dream come true for me to become a head coach, and there have been many mentors and friends that have helped along the way. Marv Levy, Dom Capers, Tony Dungy and Jim Caldwell are all great men that I learned so much from when they allowed me to spend time around their teams and coaching staffs.
Coaches like Nick Saban, Jim Hofher, Charlie Weis, Jim Harbaugh and Kevin Sumlin all influenced me a great deal as I had the pleasure of working for them at various stops in my career. I have no doubt that the lessons that I have learned from all of these great teachers, and from others I have encountered along the way, will serve me well as we begin this journey at Nevada."
It is clear that Polian has learned from impressive coaches, so hopefully success could rub off for Polian so that he can be a successful head coach in his first try. The main area where Polian is considered very good is his success at being a top recruiter. He has been a recruiting coordinator at Notre Dame, Texas A&M plus Stanford.
The next step for the Nevada program is for Polian to bring in solid offensive and defensive coordinator's preferably one's who have a good number of years under their belt. However, finding those type of coaches this late in the hiring season could prove to be difficult.
Also, there is no word yet on if Polian will continue to utilize the Pistol offense going forward. It would likely be in his best interest to keep elements of that offense since it has been so successful for the Wolf Pack.