Report: Louisville to Hire Army's Greg Gasparato as Next Safeties Coach
(Photo of Greg Gasparato: Wofford College Athletics)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - With all the coaching staff turnover that the Louisville football program has experienced over the current offseason, on Sunday, it reportedly became finalized with spring practice just one day away.
Army co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach Greg Gasparato "is expected to join" the Cardinals coaching staff for the latter role, according to a report from The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman.
He is replacing ShaDon Brown, who departed the program last week to become the co-defensive coordinator at West Virginia.
In his lone season at West Point, Gasparato helped to oversee statistically the top defense in all of FBS, as the Black Knights surrendered just 275.3 yards per game. In the secondary, Army gave up 160.8 passing yards per game, second in FBS only to West Virginia.
There are plenty of ties to Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield as well. Gasparato became a defensive graduate assistant at Appalachian State in 2013, the same year Satterfield made his debut as the Mountaineers' head coach.
After a stint from 2015-17 at Wofford, Gasparato returned to App State as the safeties coach for the 2018 and 2019 season prior to joining Army's staff.
The Mountaineers had three safeties recognized as All-Sun Belt selections by Pro Football Focus in 2018, as Desmond Franklin, Austin Exford and Josh Thomas combined for nine interceptions. In 2019, the App State defense had top 30 national statistical rankings in nearly every major category.
Including Brown, four assistant coaches have departed the program. Running backs coach Norval McKenzie was hired to the same position at his alma mater of Vanderbilt, quarterbacks coach Frank Ponce took the offensive coordinator job at Appalachian State and offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford accepted the offensive line coaching position with the Atlanta Falcons.
Louisville later hired East Carolina running backs coach De’Rail Sims to replace McKenzie, and promoted quality control coach Pete Thomas to quarterbacks coach. Most recently, it has been reported that Auburn’s Jack Bicknell Jr. has been hired as Louisville’s new offensive line coach, but will not have the offensive coordinator title. The Cardinals have yet to designate an OC out of the five offensive assistants on staff.
Louisville ended the 2020 season at 4-7 overall and 3-7 in the ACC. Spring practice is scheduled to begin on Monday. Feb. 8. The Cardinals will kickoff the 2021 season against Ole Miss in the annual Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. on Monday, Sept. 6.
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