Rich Rodriguez has hired Rod Smith to coordinate his offense at Jacksonville State, the school has announced.
The move fills the vacancy created by Calvin Magee's death last month, at 59. "Calvin was a great husband, great father and grandfather, great coach, great friend and great man. He impacted my life and the lives of so many others in such a positive way," Rodriguez said at the time.
Hiring Smith keeps the job within the Rodriguez 'family.' Smith first worked for Rodriguez at West Virginia in 2001 and also coached quarterbacks under him at Michigan and Arizona.
Magee was also on those WVU, Michigan and Arizona staffs, coaching running backs while Smith handled the quarterbacks.
After the breakup of Rodriguez's Arizona staff, Smith spent 2018-20 as Illinois's offensive coordinator and 2021 as an offensive analyst at Virginia.
He had joined Penn State's staff as a similar capacity, but will now coordinate Jacksonville State's offense instead.
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