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Oregon St. Adds Ace Recruiter/Defensive Coordinator Kalani Sitake

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A couple weeks ago, Oregon St. made a huge splash by swiping Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen to replace departed Mike Riley. By all accounts, it was a fantastic hire, and I suspect that a lot of Beaver fans found it to be a net gain.

Well, apparently Oregon St. wasn't done. Yesterday, Gary Andersen announced that he would be filling his staff out with Kalani Sitake and Ilaisa Tuiaki from Utah. Additionally, Chad Kauha'aha'a, Derrick Odum, and T.J. Woods were named to the staff.

It's worth noting the hiring of Sitake and Tuiaki because of their resumes and the fact that OSU is poaching some very good coaches from a potential Pac-12 South contender. Sitake has been at Utah for the past 10 years, and actually replaced Gary Andersen as DC there in 2009 when Andersen left for Utah St. Tuiaki coached with Andersen at Utah St. from 2009-11 before moving to Utah for the last two years. It's clear that Andersen's ties to both Sitake and Tuiaki came in to play here, as they are both taking a lateral move. It's a clear contrast to our own head coach, who simply doesn't have the same resources in the college game to pull from.

With the hires, I would expect OSU's defense to make a major step forward. Utah led the nation in sacks last season with 55, led by Nate Orchard who led the NCAA in sacks with 18.5, and was 5th nationally in tackles for loss with 103. As far as Utah is concerned, head coach Kyle Whittingham is the architect for their defense, and I would expect them to promote in house and not change much. That, of course, is bad news for our own OC Noel Mazzone, who simply has not figured out how to attack Utah's defense in his tenure at UCLA.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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