Sources: Oregon is expected to hire Baylor’s Matt Powledge as the school’s new co-defensive coordinator. He worked as the safeties coach and special teams coach at Baylor.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 15, 2021
Soon after the Oregon Ducks made a new hire at the offensive coordinator position in Kenny Dillingham, there are now reports coming out that they are also going to bring in Baylor safeties and special teams coach Matt Powledge as the team’s co-defensive coordinator, according to Pete Thamel.
As with both Lanning and Dillingham, Powledge is a young coach who was named to the AFCA 35-under-35 list last season, made to identify some of the best young coaches in the nation.
Powledge spent that last year learning under defensive mastermind Dave Aranda with Baylor but has a good amount of coaching experience before that. He has coached for 11 years and spent two seasons at Louisiana (2018-19) working with new Baylor defensive coordinator Ron Roberts. During that time the program made two consecutive Sun Belt Conference championship game appearances and won a school-record 11 games in 2019 including a 27-17 bowl victory over Miami (Ohio).
In his two seasons at UL, Powledge mentored six All-Sun Belt honorees. In 2019, Louisiana ranked first or second in the Sun Belt in kickoff return defense, kickoff returns and net punting. Additionally, the Cajuns ranked among the top 24 in the nation in each category.
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