BYU Football Coaching Tracker: BYU alumni Vic So’oto and Kelly Bills accept new positions

The last week has been fairly active on the college football coaching circuit, with a few of those changes including a few former BYU Football players. That being the case, we figured it was a good time to refresh the BYU Football Coaching Tracker.

For those who haven’t come across our document before, we created a Google Sheet to track college and professional coaches that have some level of connection to BYU. Some of the guys on this list have played at BYU while others were previously coaches on staff. We also included coaches that don’t have a specific connection to BYU but are members of the Church. Below is the link to the tracker and a few of the latest updates.

BYU Football Coaching Tracker

• We covered the AJ Steward news on Friday, but as it still stands BYU has not named a replacement. Coach Steward has been moved off the current staff section and into the rest of the college coaches list. Based on this list the only other current running backs coaches that have a BYU connection are Mark Atuaia and graduate assistant Harvey Unga. It’s highly doubtful that Atuaia will come back to Provo but there is a good chance Unga gets the promotion.
• After a couple of strong seasons coaching the defensive line at Virginia, Vic So’oto jumped coasts and returned home to his native California to coach at USC. So’oto was instrumental in helping the Cavaliers improve their defense over the last few years as his unit was seventh in the country in sacks last season. This is a great opportunity for Vic but he steps into somewhat of a precarious situation. Head coach Clay Helton is on very thin ice after two disappointing seasons and this could be his last shot to save his job. We’ll see if So’oto can get things going quickly with the Trojans.
• Former BYU player and graduate assistant Kelly Bills was hired on as the offensive coordinator at Dixie State, joining another former BYU graduate assistant Paul Petersen. Bills served as the offensive coordinator at Central Washington for one season and was on the Weber State offensive staff for three years (two as a WR coach and one as QB coach). Petersen is collecting a nice group of former BYU guys in St George that includes JD Falslev, Loni Fangupo, Mike Smith and Tanner Balderee. It will be interesting to see if BYU starts to pluck coaches from that staff in the same way that Southern Utah and Weber State have sent a lot of coaches to Provo.
• Former BYU defensive back and defensive backs coach Brian Mitchell was hired on as the defensive backs coach at NC State, after spending the last four seasons in the same position at Virginia Tech.
• Current Alabama offensive coordinator and former BYU quarterback Steve Sarkisian isn’t on the move but Jon Wilner of the Mercury News suggests that Colorado, who just lost Mel Tucker to Michigan State, should take a look at Sark. Wilner suggests that it could be time for the proven offensive coach to get a head coaching position.