Petersen departs La. Tech for Pirates

Staff Report
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On the eve of officially going on the payroll on New Year's Day as East Carolina's head football coach, Scottie Montgomery swung into action a day early on Thursday by tapping the staff of former ECU coach Skip Holtz for an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Tony Petersen, one of 34 college football assistant coaches nominated for the 2015 Broyles Award, will bring offensive coaching skills to the Pirates that helped Louisiana Tech average more than 37 points per game and record consecutive nine-win seasons and back-to-back bowl victories in 2014 and 2015.

Among a litany of notable offensive accomplishments during the Bulldogs' emergence as a Conference USA power was Petersen's development of standout quarterbacks Cody Sokol and Jeff Driskel.

Petersen's portfolio includes 25 years of coaching experience. He joined Holtz in Shreveport in 2013 after serving three years as offensive coordinator at Marshall, his alma mater. His previous stops included South Dakota, Iowa State and Minnesota.

"His experience and background is defined by a consistent high level of production and we are thrilled about his desire to be at East Carolina," Montgomery said in a news release.

According to a report in the Shreveport Times, Petersen made a base salary of $200,000 last season and was the second-highest paid offensive coordinator in C-USA. It would be reasonable to assume that Petersen will received a meaningful boost in income for making the move to Greenville.

Petersen joins an ECU staff that began taking shape two days before Christmas when Montgomery announced the hiring of his first five assistants:

• Defensive coordinator Kenwick Thompson (previously served as Vanderbilt associate head coach and linebackers coach)

• Defensive line coach Deke Adams (previously served in the same role at South Carolina)

• Wide receivers coach Phil McGeoghan (previously served in the same role for the Miami Dolphins)

• Secondary coach Rick Smith (previously served as defensive coordinator and secondary coach on former ECU coach Ruffin McNeill's staff)

• Assistant athletics director for football operations Terrell Smith (previously served as director of football operations at Duke)

PAGE UPDATED 01/01/16 03:41 AM.

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