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On the heels of the reports that Dave Borberly would return to Virginia to fill the vacancy left by Scott Wachenheim when he departed for VMI comes a report that Chris Beatty will be hired to fill the vacancy left by Tom O'Brien's retirement.
Wisconsin WRs coach Chris Beatty expected to join staff of Virginia coach Mike London per source. Could coach RBs.
— Thayer Evans (@ThayerEvansSI) January 13, 2015
Beatty's most recent coaching stop was at Wisconsin, where he has been Wide Receivers coach since February 2013. But his ties to the Commonwealth of Virginia run deep.
He grew up in Centreville, Va and played football at Chantilly High School. After graduating from East Tennessee State University and a brief stint at pro ball, Beatty returned to the Commonwealth. He began as the head coach at North Stafford High School in 1998, moved to the head job at Salem High School in 2001 and, finally, took the reins at Landstown High School from 2003-2005. Landstown won the state championship all three years that Beatty was the head coach.
Beatty's first stop in the college coaching ranks was in Virginia as well - he was the Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach at Hampton for the 2006 season.
Since then he's bounced around a number of schools - Northern Illinois (Running Backs 2007), West Virginia (Running Backs 2008-2010), Vanderbilt (Wide Receivers, Recruiting Coordinator 2011), Illinois (Co-Offensive Coordinator, Quarterbacks 2012) and Wisconsin (Wide Receivers 2013-2014).
Beatty has been recruiting the Commonwealth at most of his collegiate coaching stops, so it is likely his relationships with players will help the Cavaliers solidify or steal a couple of commitments. I'm sure Drew will have more info on that in the next few weeks.
With Borberly and Beatty joining the staff and the recent news of the new one-year contracts for the existing assistants, it looks like this part of the off-season has come to a close. Time to see what these coaches can do to close out the recruiting season and start developing the players!