KU football names Rob Ianello WR coach and recruiting coordinator

By J-W Staff Reports     Jan 3, 2012

Kansas University football coach Charlie Weis continues to lean on his experience at Notre Dame to shape his coaching staff at Kansas.

Tuesday, Weis named Rob Ianello the program’s wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, the same positions he held under Weis at Notre Dame from 2005-08.

Ianello spent the past two seasons as the head coach at Akron. He was fired in December after going 2-22 during his two seasons.

Prior to joining Akron, in January 2009, Ianello was promoted at Notre Dame to assistant head coach for offense. In that role, he led offensive staff meetings when head coach Charlie Weis was not present, and later served as the team’s interim head coach.

Notre Dame’s 2009 offense ranked sixth nationally in passing offense (323.50 ypg) and ninth in total offense (451.75 ypg). Ianello mentored Irish wide receiver Golden Tate, who was the 2009 Biletnikoff Award winner and a consensus All-American. Additionally he coached Jeff Samardzija, who was a Biletnikoff Award finalist in 2005 and 2006 and earned All-America honors in 2006.

As the recruiting coordinator for the Irish, he directed three consecutive top-10 recruiting classes from 2006-08, something only three other schools (USC, Florida and Georgia) could claim. Additionlly, Ianello is the only coach named one of the 25-best recruiters nationally from 2005-09 by Rivals.com. In the book “The Second Season” by recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, Ianello is named one of the top-10 recruiters of the last 30 years.

Ianello had two coaching stints at Wisconsin (1990-93, 2003-04), and was part of a staff that helped lead the Badgers to the 1994 Rose Bowl, the 2003 Music City Bowl and the 2005 Outback Bowl.

From 1994-2002, Ianello was on staff at Arizona, serving as recruiting coordinator from 1994-96, and wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator from 1997-2002. The Wildcats played in two bowl games, the 1997 Insight.com Bowl and the 1998 Holiday Bowl. The 1998 Arizona team finished 12-1, which stands as the best record in school history.-+

Ianello served on the board of trustees of the American Football Coaches Association in from 2003 to 2009. The board formulates policy and provides direction for the AFCA. He also has served as the chair of the AFCA’s assistant coaches committee and the general chairman of the AFCA’s all-division assistant coaches committee. He currently serves on the AFCA ethics committee.

Born Nov. 4, 1965, Ianello is a native of Port Chester, N.Y., and is a 1987 graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., owning a bachelor’s degree in English.

Ianello and his wife, the former Denise Dove, have one son, Zachary (5), and two daughters, Ashley (4) and Courtney (3). Denise played collegiate basketball at Northern Illinois and is a former assistant women’s basketball coach at Arizona and Wisconsin. She has also worked as a scout in the WNBA.

Buddy Wyatt to be retained as D-Line coach

Weis also announced Tuesday that Buddy Wyatt, one of three coaches who remained active for the Jayhawks following the firing of Turner Gill, will be retained as the defensive line coach on the Kansas coaching staff.

Wyatt, who served the previous two years on the Jayhawk staff under Gill, joins running backs coach Reggie Mitchell as one of two former staff members retained by Weis.

The 2012 season will mark Wyatt’s third season at Kansas and 22nd overall at the collegiate level. He has made several coaching stops in the Big 12 Conference, as he came to Kansas after spending the 2008-09 seasons at Texas A&M. Wyatt coached at Oklahoma State (1996) and also at Texas A&M (2000-02, 08-09). In addition he has coached at TCU (1991), Minnesota (1992-95), Northwestern (1997-98), Colorado (1999), Alabama (2003-06) and Nebraska (2007).

In addition to Wyatt and Mitchell, Weis has announced Rob Ianello (Recruiting Coordinator/Wide Receivers), Tim Grunhard (Offensive Line) and Ron Powlus (Quarterbacks) as members of his Kansas coaching staff.

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