Yesterday Bret Bielema announced the hiring of Zach Azzanni as the newest member of the Wisconsin coaching staff as Wide Receivers coach. After that hiring we told you it was a good signal that the announcement of the hiring of an offensive coordinator couldn’t be too far behind. Well, little did we know it would be less than 24 hours later. Earlier today Bielema released a statement announcing the hiring of Matt Canada, the Offensive Coordinator with Northern Illinois as the newest Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks coach at the University of Wisconsin.
Canada spent the past season leading one of the nations most efficient and balanced offenses at Northern Illinois, being one of 5 schools, along with Wisconsin, to both pass and rush for over 230 yards a game a piece in 2011. He was instrumental in helping to lead the Huskies to an 11-3 overall record and birth in the GoDaddy.com Bowl.
“Matt has a terrific history has an offensive coordinator and has excelled at developing quarterbacks throught his career,” Bielema said in a statement. “I know he is very excited about running a pro-style offense and handling a game the way we typically have at Wisconsin. I think this is a great hire for us and I can’t wait for him to get to work with our coaches and players.”
One thing is for sure, Bielema and the Badgers have to have had about as up close and personal a look at a coach they are about to hire as you can have outside of him being on your staff, having coached on the other sideline as Wisconsin and Northern Illinois tussled on the turf at Soldier Field this past season.
While it wasn’t all that pretty for Harnish and the Huskies offense, I think the fact that Canada directed an offense that finished in the top 12 of scoring offense, total offense, and rushing offense speaks to the success the 2011 Huskies team he lead was able to have.
“I’m truly excited to come to Wisconsin,” Canada said in a statement. “It’s a program that I’ve followed for a number of years. I’ve always been impressed with their tradition, especially offensively with their style of play, and I can’t wait to be a part of that.”
But the question of a change in offensive philosophy remains a bit lingering with the two hires that Bielema has made, both being from spread offensive systems in Azzanni (learning under Urban Meyer) and Canada.
Well, that was emphatically put to rest by Bielema, “In this process I’m putting together a staff that will come from different directions to come together to play football the way Wisconsin has traditionally played.”
Case closed, huh?
Canada comes with some great credentials as a coach and most importantly knows the ins and outs of recruiting and coaching in the Big Ten, having served as a long time assistant at Indiana. He started his coaching career there as a student assistant in 1992-93 and then as a graduate assistant in 1994-95. Canada would return to his alma mater for a 7 year stint as an offensive assistant, where he would serve as the QB’s coach for all 7 years. He was made passing game coordinator for the ’05 and ’06 seasons and was promoted to full time offensive coordinator from 2007-2010 for the Hoosiers.
In between stops in Bloomington and now Wisconsin he would also serve two times as an assistant for the Huskies of Northern Illinois. First as a running backs coach from 1998-2000 and then as a QB’s coach from 2001-02. He finally was promoted to the Offensive Coordinators job for the 2003 season, in which Northern Illinois finished ranked #12 in the AP poll and #10 in the coaches poll after beating the likes of Iowa State, Maryland, and Alabama that year.
He’s coached some amazing players along the way including Badgers RB coach Thomas Hammock, Michael Turner, Ryan Diem, and Justin McCariens at NIU. At Indiana he managed to coach a few QB’s that broke school passing records, most notably Ben Chappell, who had he been surrounded by more talent would’ve been talked about a lot more as a great Big Ten QB. As it was, Chappell left Bloomington as the single season school record holder in attempts, completions, and yards and led the conference in that year (’10) in all three categories as well.
Look for further analysis from myself and our football analyst Arman Belding tonight starting at 8pm CT on the world famous BADGERS POWER HOUR via Blogtalkradio, so don’t miss out on that by tuning in LIVE by clicking the red words above or subscribe via iTunes so that you don’t ever have to miss an episode and you can listen at your pleasure.
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