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After being unable to lure his brother Paul away from the head coaching job at Idaho, Louisville coach Bobby Petrino has reportedly found his replacement for offensive coordinator Garrick McGee. According to Mike Casazza of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Louisville will hire offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway from West Virginia for the same role in Louisville.
Source: Receivers coach Lonnie Galloway leaving WVU to be named co-offensive coordinator at Louisville.
— Mike Casazza (@mikecasazza) March 14, 2016
For the past three seasons, Galloway has been the associate head coach and receivers coach on Dana Holgorsen's staff. For several reasons this makes for a nice transition for Galloway into this role at Louisville. First, he's already used to working for a head coach that's truly the offensive coordinator and the dominant personality in terms of game-planning and play-calling. Second, and perhaps more importantly, Galloway's arrival in Morgantown coincided with Holgorsen's decision to explicitly use more of a mobile quarterback and option concepts in his air raid offense he'd developed over the years working for Mike Leach, Kevin Sumlin, and others. Last year, West Virginia quarterback Skylar Howard rushed for 502 yards in addition to throwing for more than 3,000. Giving him the chance to work with Lamar Jackson will only help. Third, Galloway spent two seasons on the staff at Wake Forest as passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach, so there's familiarity with the opposition and geography of the ACC.
Perhaps equally as important, Galloway is an exceptional recruiter. According to 247Sports, he was responsible for bringing eventual stars Bruce Irvin, Jovon Durante, Tavon Austin, and Ivan McCartney. Having a coach with experience recruiting in areas around south Florida like Miramar (Durante, McCartney), as well as places up and down the east coast like Baltimore (Austin), and Durham, NC (four-star running back Donte Thomas-Williams) will only help Louisville maintain a recruiting presence in Florida and expand its efforts elsewhere.