Jay Norvell’s staff receives a shakeup as Sheffield follows Chang to Hawai’i

FORT COLLINS — The Colorado State football staff continues to be in a state of flux. 

Jay Norvell’s coaching staff appeared to be essentially complete, then the wide receivers coach Timmy Chang was hired to be the head coach at the University of Hawai’i. The position of wide receivers coach remains open for CSU. 

Chang is not the only former Nevada coach to be going from CSU to Hawai’i, though, Thomas Sheffield (special teams coordinator) will also be going to Honolulu, HI. Sheffield posted a message on Twitter thanking Novell and the CSU community, stating that he believes the program is in great hands and has tremendous coaches, players, alumni, fans and an administration to compete. While he believes in CSU and thinks it’s a special place, the opportunity to be associate head coach, as well as lead the tight ends and coordinate special teams at Hawaii with one of his best friends was too good to turn down. 

#BRADDAHHOOD #RideOrDie pic.twitter.com/gD0EcbRqXO

— Coach Sheffield (@CoachSheff_UH) January 26, 2022

While losing Sheffield is a bummer, much like the situation with Chang, you cannot blame a guy for taking a significant promotion in title and likely getting a big bump in pay. Plus, according to Football Scoop, Norvell had no trouble filling the role of special teams coordinator. The outlet reported on Tuesday that CSU has hired Thomas Perry from UTSA to take the same position with the Rams.

Perry was Norvell’s special teams coordinator at Nevada from 2017-2019 before moving on to work with Jeff Traylor at UTSA in 2020. Perry has also worked as a running backs coach and special teams coordinator at both North Texas and South Alabama. However, he actually began his coaching career as an assistant strength & conditioning coach at the University of Texas back in 2004. He spent three seasons as a graduate assistant and intern under Mike Shula and then Nick Saban at Alabama. He also briefly spent some time working in NFL Europe. 

A guy with football in his blood, Perry is the grandson of Texas A&M’s 1957 Heisman Trophy winner John David Crow. Perry played a couple of seasons for the Aggies as well, spending time at fullback, defensive end and inside linebacker. 

As a coach Perry was credited with elevating the special teams units during his three years with Nevada, it’s why he was desirable to UTSA in the first place. He’ll now reunite with Norvell and attempt to help him bring some stability to the third element of the game for CSU.

The Rams’ specialists were some of the best in the country in 2021, however, special teams play as a whole has been highly erratic for quite some time. The Rams botched an opportunity to upset Utah State due to miscommunication in the most crucial moment last fall. And in 2020 CSU had three different kicks blocked in an embarrassing loss to Boise State. We’ll see if having a full-time coordinator dedicated to special teams eliminates some of the low moments that were far too frequent during the Steve Addazio era.