Colorado has promoted two members of the football staff, but itap the newcomer that could have the most immediate impact.
On Friday, CU announced that defensive line coach Chris Wilson has been promoted to defensive coordinator and safeties coach Brett Maxie to defensive passing game coordinator, while Shannon Turley has been hired as the strength and conditioning coach.
According to BuffZone.com sources, CU will also hire Mark Smith, the defensive coordinator at Long Island University, to coach inside linebackers. CU is waiting on the completion of Smith’s background check before officially announcing his hire.
While Wilson and Maxie take on new roles with the Buffs, itap the addition of Turley that might be the most significant. Turley was the director of sports performance at Stanford from 2007-19 before being fired in April of 2019 for undisclosed reasons.
“He’s a guy thatap very familiar with the conference and we’re really fortunate to get a man of his caliber and I think he’ll do a great job for us,” CU head coach Karl Dorrell said.
Recognized as one of the best in his field, Turley was named the FootballScoop.com strength and conditioning coach of the year in 2011. In 2013, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) named him the college strength and conditioning coach of the year.
Dorrell’s son, Chandler, who is now CU’s assistant director of player personnel, and Aziz Shittu, a graduate assistant with the Buffs, were both coached by Turley at Stanford.
Former Stanford defensive end Jordan Watkins was a teammate of Shittu and Chandler Dorrell and was coached for five years by Turley, from 2012-16.
“Thatap gonna be huge for them,” Watkins said of adding Turley. “He was the backbone of all the success that Stanford had.
“First and foremost, the best thing he has going for him is he has two guys in the program that he coached. I always feel like when you already have somebody in the building that can vouch for you, itap huge. He’s not gonna be necessarily a total stranger.”
Watkins said Stanford players had great respect for Turley. Stanford was 1-11 before Turley arrived, went 111-47 with three Pac-12 titles while he was there, and is 8-10 since he was fired.
Despite his success with Stanford, Turley was placed on administrative leave on Feb. 2, 2019, just a few weeks after a 14-13 win against Pittsburgh in the Sun Bowl – Stanford’s 10th consecutive bowl appearance.
Turley was fired about two months later, with Stanford issuing a statement that read, “Coach Shannon Turley no longer works at Stanford. As this is a personnel matter, we will not be providing further information.”
Dorrell said CU conducted a background check on Turley and felt comfortable bringing him aboard.
“We’ve done our due diligence with finding out as much information as we could, in terms of his previous employment, things of that nature,” Dorrell said. “No one’s said anything bad about this guy, whether professionally, whether itap former players, former coaches, administrators there at Stanford. There were no violations, Title IX violations or any unlawful issues or anything like that, which are the key components for hiring anybody.
“We went through an extensive process about that, just to make sure we did what was necessary and we did. We think in the end we came away with a fantastic hire.”
Turley will replace Drew Wilson, who led CU’s strength and conditioning program for five years but had an expiring contract that was not renewed. Turley was en route to Boulder on Friday and players begin offseason workouts on Monday.
“It happened in the nick of time,” Dorrell said. “He’s going to be able to be here and be where he needs to be and get our program started. We’re excited and I know our players are, too.”
Wilson, hired by Dorrell last February, will replace Tyson Summers, who was let go earlier this month after two years as the Buffs’ coordinator.
“I’m excited about his experience, what he brings to the table from a knowledge base and all the places that he’s been in his career,” Dorrell said.
With more than 25 years of experience, mostly at Power Five schools or the NFL, Wilson, 52, has been a coordinator at the Power 5 level once before. He was co-coordinator at Mississippi State in 2010 before being sole coordinator for the Bulldogs from 2011-12. Wilson was also a coordinator at Northeastern (Okla.) A&M in 1996.
Maxie was also hired last year by Dorrell and worked with the Buffs’ safeties. A 13-year NFL veteran, he has coached defensive backs for 22 seasons at various levels of football.
“I’m really excited about this opportunity for him, to have a little bit more leadership on our defense and in really getting our back end people shored up to playing great football,” Dorrell said.
Smith will be reunited with Wilson, as the two worked together at Oklahoma more than a decade ago. At the time, Wilson coached the Sooners’ defensive ends coach, while Smith was a defensive quality control coach. They have maintained a friendship ever since.
Smith was the defensive backs coach and recruiting coordinator at Arkansas in 2018 and 2019. After a coaching change at Arkansas following the 2019 season, Smith landed a job as the defensive coordinator at LIU, which had its 2020 season postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before his two years at Arkansas, Smith was an assistant at SMU for three seasons, working on offense in 2015-16 and on defense in 2017. He was also director of recruiting for the Mustangs. Prior to SMU, Smith was a head coach at L.D. Bell High School in Texas. He went to Bell after his stint at Oklahoma.
