Woodling: Coaches from KU abound

Have you ever heard of Joe Pannunzio? How about Mark Dantonio?

Never have, huh? They’re hardly household names. But if you’ve followed Kansas University closely over the years, the names may be familiar.

Pannunzio and Dantonio are two of the five former KU assistant football coaches who currently are head coaches in the college ranks. Dantonio is in his second year as head coach at Cincinnati University, while Pannunzio is in his sixth year in charge of Murray State’s program.

Dantonio was secondary coach under Glen Mason from 1991 to ’94. In fact, he and defensive coordinator Bob Fello were fired after the ’94 season. Dantonio later hooked on at Michigan State and was defensive coordinator at Ohio State when the Bearcats beckoned. Fello, in case you’re wondering, now is defensive-ends coach at The Citadel.

Pannunzio can trace his college coaching origin to Kansas, but you couldn’t blame him if he left it off his resume. Pannunzio was here during the two odorous Bob Valesente years, starting as a graduate aide in 1986 and advancing to tight-ends coach in ’87.

The other three former KU assistants now working as head coaches are Mark Farley, Dick Tomey and Ron Zook.

Farley came to Mount Oread with Terry Allen in 1997 and was named Northern Iowa’s head coach following the 2000 season. Looking at it another way, Farley escaped the year before Allen was pink-slipped. Allen, as you probably know, still is associate head coach at Iowa State.

Tomey is a relic of the Pepper Rodgers years, serving as a KU assistant coach from 1967 to ’70. With head-coaching jobs at Hawaii and Arizona behind him, Tomey took over at San Jose State prior to the ’05 season after spending a year on Mack Brown’s staff at Texas.

Zook, who was defensive coordinator under Mike Gottfried in 1983, is in his first season as head coach at Illinois. Curiously, Reggie Mitchell, who spent nine seasons at Kansas under Mason (1988-96), is Zook’s top aide at Illinois. Mitchell is the Illini’s assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator.

At the same time, a handful of former Kansas football staffers are either offensive or defensive coordinators at other schools.

Mike Hankwitz, who spent two years as KU’s defensive coordinator (1995-96) and was considered a possible replacement for Mason when he left for Minnesota in 1997, now is in charge of the defense at Colorado.

Tom Hayes, who was the Jayhawks’ head coach during the last three games of the 2001 season after Allen was fired, now is defensive coordinator at Stanford after spending two years running a sports bar in Lawrence.

Jay Johnson, who was Allen’s quarterbacks coach from 1999 to 2001, is defensive coordinator at Southern Miss. And Mitch Browning, who has been a Mason aide for nearly two decades, is listed as co-offensive coordinator (whatever that means) at Minnesota.

Finally, do you remember Golden Pat Ruel? He was offensive coordinator under Mason for nine years and was – like Hankwitz – an unsuccessful candidate to replace his boss. Later, Ruel coached in the NFL, but today he is offensive-line coach for defending national champion USC.