Boulware joins Chizik’s staff; Taylor could be next

The first holdover from Gene Chizik’s staff at Iowa State has joined the new head coach at Auburn.

Jay Boulware, who served as Chizik’s running backs and special teams coach with the Cyclones, will become Auburn’s new special teams coordinator.

The announcement, made official late Sunday afternoon, capped a busy day for Chizik, which began with him performing pickup duty at the Auburn/Opelika Robert G. Pitts Airport for one coach already in the fold and another who could be on board as soon as today.

New running backs coach Curtis Luper and his former colleague, Oklahoma State wide receivers coach Trooper Taylor, landed in Auburn around noon Sunday and were picked up by Chizik 20 minutes later.

Taylor, who is being courted by a number of other big schools, did not offer any comments to the handful of reporters on site.

Luper, meanwhile, made it clear that he wanted Taylor to follow him to Auburn.

“Absolutely,” Luper said. “That’s why he’s on the airplane right here.

“You’ll see how good of a recruiter I am pretty soon, I hope,” Luper joked.

Taylor, who is regarded highly for his proficient recruiting, just wrapped up his first year at Oklahoma State as the wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator. He previously spent four years at Tennessee, serving as a running backs coach his first year before handling wide receivers and player development later on in his tenure.

“He’s a phenomenal man,” said Luper, who added that he had a hand in bringing Taylor to Oklahoma State. “He’s a great recruiter, great coach, great person, I could go on and on.”

Luper said he and the rest of Chizik’s make-shift staff planned to have a “recruiting meeting” at some point Sunday. The two-week “dead” period, where coaches can not contact prospective players, ended this morning.

“We’re going to go get some big-time football players,” Luper said. “I think we’re just going to go and spread out because right now there’s just three or four of us. We’re just going to go and spread out as coach sees fit.”

Chizik greeted the four reporters and two fans at the airport Sunday, but did not offer any comment regarding his staff, which now is down to five openings with the hiring of Boulware.

“I’ve had the good fortune of working with Coach Chizik the last two seasons and I am thrilled to be joining his staff at Auburn,” Boulware said in an official statement. “Auburn has a wealth of history and tradition and combined with the outstanding staff Coach Chizik has already put together with Gus Malzahn, Curtis Luper and James Willis, I can’t wait to get started.”

Boulware, 36, was a two-year letterwinner and served as a student coach at Texas before graduating in 1996. He has since held various coaching positions at Northern Illinois, Arizona, Stanford and Utah before his two-year stop at Iowa State with Chizik.

“I’m very familiar with Jay and we are extremely pleased to have him coming on board with us at Auburn,” Chizik said in an official statement. “Jay has a great work ethic, a strong knowledge of special teams, and he is a very good recruiter. He is a welcomed addition to our staff that we are putting in place.”

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