Russ Huesman barely had time to celebrate winning a national championship Friday night before turning his attention to interviewing for the job of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga head football coach.

Now that the UTC graduate and former Richmond defensive coordinator has been hired as the Mocs’ coach, he said his to-do list is longer than ever. The first order of business, he said, was hiring a coaching staff.

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Audio Interview, Mocs’ head coach Russ Huesman, cortesy of the Chattanooga Times Free Press

“I spent about eight hours yesterday working on that and making calls,” Huesman said following Monday’s introductory news conference at Finley Stadium. “I’ve got about four guys lined up already, but I can’t announce anything yet.”

Huesman said he has twice tried to map out everything that needs to happen in the next 10 days or two weeks, but he’s been so busy since he accepted the job Sunday that he hasn’t even had time to do that.

He and his family are driving back to Richmond today, and he said he should have everything figured out by the time he returns to Chattanooga on Sunday. He said he will meet with the coaches he’s hired at that time and they will quickly turn their attention to recruiting, which is in a dead period — meaning no contact with prospects — from Dec. 22 through Jan. 1.

Richmond totaled 12 wins from 2001 to ’04 but reached the NCAA semifinals in 2007 and won the national championship this year. Huesman said he sees no reason why UTC can’t have a similar turnaround, and that’s what he plans to tell recruits.

“I can go in the home of a high school kid and say, ‘Hey, here’s where we were at Richmond and here’s what we did. Now I was only a small part of it, but here’s what we did and here’s where we ended up. This can be the same way,’” he said. “I’m going to say the same thing to these guys that we said to the kids at Richmond: ‘Come help us build it.’”

Huesman met with about a dozen UTC players before Monday’s news conference but said he hasn’t yet had time to look at any video to assess the kind of players he has returning or what the Mocs’ greatest recruiting needs are.

When he returns Sunday he said he will take a look at the numbers, in terms of depth at each position, and begin targeting from there.

“Until I look at film, we’re not going to know how good we are at certain spots,” he said. “I hope we’re good at certain spots, but I have not watched one bit of film.”

That’s on the to-do list, too.

Huesman has a lot to do
By John Frierson, The Chattanooga Times Free Press
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/dec/23/chattanooga-huesman-has-lot-do/