Impressive month of moves for former Grizzlies

The Butler Community College football coaching tree grew some pretty impressive limbs over the last month, as a run of former Grizzlies – both players and coaches – picked up plum jobs on the FBS level.

Making the biggest splash was former Butler All-American tight end Matt Mattox, an assistant with the Grizzlies from 2007 to 2011 who was hired by Texas coach Charlie Strong on Dec. 12 to be the Longhorns’ offensive line coach and running game coordinator.

Mattox, the co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Tulsa, agreed to a three-year deal for $550,000 per year.

Former Butler coach James Shibest, who led the Grizzlies to national titles in 1998 and 1999, joined first-year coach Justin Fuente’s staff at Virginia Tech as special teams coordinator and tight end coach. Shibest spent the last four seasons in the same role on Fuente’s coaching staff at Memphis.

Northeastern Oklahoma A&M coach and former Butler offensive coordinator Ryan Held, who was hired as an assistant coach at Central Florida after Held’s college teammate at Nebraska, Scott Frost, was hired to coach the Knights.

Held, who is from Overland Park, coached at Butler in 2011, spent two seasons as Highland’s coach and the last two seasons at NEO.

Wichita native A.J. Blazek, a former Butler offensive lineman who went on to play at Iowa, was hired as Rutgers’ offensive line coach on Dec. 22. Blazek, who was on Shibest’s championship team in 1998, has been Western Illinois’ offensive line coach since 2013.

Blazek has known new Rutgers coach Chris Ash for 15 years, going back to when Blazek was a student assistant at Iowa and Ash was a graduate assistant at Iowa State.

“I’m somebody who has always really enjoyed where he’s at and tried build the relationships with the people I’m around,” Blazek said. “And that’s what I’m looking forward to at Rutgers and with Coach Ash.”

Blazek’s position coach at Butler was Troy Morrell, who went on to win three national titles in 15 seasons as Butler’s coach before he resigned in 2014.

“Butler is a special place ... it’s somewhere where a lot of people have come together at the right place and the right time,” Blazek said. “To me, Troy is the one who is the most successful out of all of us for what he accomplished.

“I think you’re going to see the tradition of coaches coming out of there continue. Young guys like (Butler offensive line coach) Wade Weibert and (Butler co-offensive coordinator) Brice Vignery, I think, have really bright futures.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2015 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Impressive month of moves for former Grizzlies."