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First, Pitt lost head football coach Paul Chryst to Wisconsin. The announcement that athletic director Steve Pederson was out followed.
As a result, Pitt officially made the official announcement that the search for a new head coach and athletic director is officially underway:
Chancellor Gallagher has appointed Dr. Randy P. Juhl, Vice Chancellor for Research Conduct and Compliance, to serve as Pitt’s acting athletic director effective immediately. A full national search for the next athletic director will begin immediately.
...
"A working group is being assembled to find our next football coach. The opportunity to lead one of the country’s most historic college football programs is extremely attractive. In addition to tremendous history, we believe we have a program ready to flourish in the highly competitive ACC as well as nationally."
I wrote about this before, but hopefully the search isn't just now beginning. Reports broke that said Pitt wasn't yet contacting potential candidates out of respect to Chryst since he was still technically the head coach. That would be the height of insanity, however, as it was widely believed Chryst was leaving for Wisconsin for several days.
Hopefully a plan is in place and a short list of candidates assembled at the very least. It's also unclear of who exactly is comprising that 'working group' that will be participating in the search. Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and interim athletic director Randy Juhl would obviously be included, but beyond that, it's a gray area.
A couple of notes from Pitt's official press release was that the coaching job has already assembled 'considerable expressions of interest' and also that a search for both an athletic director and head coach would begin immediately without any indication of one coming before the other.
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