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PROVO â The one constant in college football is change, even for a program with 11 wins in the past two seasons like BYU.
BYU offensive line coach Ryan Pugh will become the next offensive coordinator at Troy, guiding his own offense for the first time under new head coach Chip Lindsey, the Trojans announced Monday afternoon.
The hire was first reported earlier Monday by Football Scoop, which also reported that Lindsey plans to promote Troy linebackers coach Brandon Hall to defensive coordinator as he seeks to round out his staff in the wake of Neal Brownâs departure to West Virginia.
Pugh spent one season at BYU, following mentor and former offensive line coach Jeff Grimes to Provo for the latterâs first full-time offensive coordinator job. In Pugh's one season in Provo, the Cougars improved their scoring output by just over 10 points per game.
"I'm excited to be back home in the state of Alabama and to have the opportunity to work with coach Lindsey," Pugh said in a statement from Troy. "You cannot help but be excited when you have a great offensive mind in coach Lindsey as the head coach of a tradition-rich program like Troy. I'm honored and thankful to be at Troy and look forward to pushing these young men and this program to the top of the Group of Five."
He inherited a line that paved the way to 130.5 yards per game and a 4-0 record in 2017, and improved them to 153.2 yards per game and a 7-6 record.
In the season prior to Pugh's arrival, BYUâs run game scored 12 touchdowns, or just under a touchdown per game. After Pugh got there and emboldened by the emergence of redshirt freshman running back Lopini Katoa, the Cougars scored 27 touchdowns on the ground â an average of 2.07 rushing scores per game.
Pugh mentored a pair of All-American offensive lineman in BYU freshmen James Empey (first team) and Brady Christensen (second team).
Itâs easy to see how the fast-rising coach immediately upgraded BYUâs run game.
"I'm excited for Coach Pugh," BYU coach Kalani Sitake said in a statement from the university. "This is a great opportunity for Ryan to become a coordinator in his home state. He is an outstanding coach, and I appreciate all he has done to help our program. I wish him the best at Troy."
A native of Hoover, Alabama, Pugh was a four-year letter winner at Auburn and the starting center on the Tigersâ 2010 national championship team. He played briefly in the NFL after signing as an undrafted free agent with the Carolina Panthers in 2011, but returned to Auburn as a graduate assistant in 2012 to start his coaching career.
His travels took him to Virginia Tech, Cincinnati and LSU, where he worked extensively with Grimes, before Pugh was hired for his first full-time assistant job as the offensive line coach at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2016-17.
When Grimes returned to BYU to succeed Heisman Trophy winner and school legend Ty Detmer as offensive coordinator, the veteran line coach made Pugh one of his first official hires.
Pugh fit in naturally with the conservative, family-oriented campus community and Provo, at large. Though not a member of the schoolâs sponsoring religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pugh â a devout Christian whose wife Cathey recently had their first child â could often be seen after practice, as well as out in the community with his young family.
"Coming from the Southeast, there are a lot of similarities to Provo and to Utah," Pugh said. "BYU has a lot of advantages that other universities donât have, whether it be the Mormon religion, the honor code, the tradition-rich academics. People can look at those as restraints, but we will look at them as advantages that allow us to recruit a higher-level young man."
With Pugh leaving, BYU will look to fill his role as offensive line coach. While Grimes will have a hand in the Cougars' development of linemen, immediate candidates for the position include current graduate assistant Dallas Reynolds and former BYU offensive line coach Mike Empey, who still lives in American Fork. Reynolds, the son of longtime BYU offensive line coach Lance Reynolds, spent seven seasons in the NFL before returning to his alma mater last year.
Empey, the father of center James Empey, was BYU's O-line coach on two previous occasions, but was not retained when Detmer was dismissed following the 4-9 showing of 2017.
Middle Tennessee State offensive line coach Rick Mallory could also be a candidate for the job. Mallory, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a Washington graduate who spent the past six seasons with the Blue Raiders.
Grimes could also tap Eric Mateos, the current Texas State offensive line coach who was an offensive line graduate assistant under Grimes at LSU in 2016.
