Ewu Assistant Graybeal Takes Over At Weber State

Jerry Graybeal has resigned his duties as Eastern Washington University’s defensive coordinator to become the head football coach at Weber State University, and he is taking offensive coordinator J.D. Sollars and at least one other Eastern assistant with him to Ogden, Utah.

EWU head coach Mike Kramer confirmed the moves late Tuesday night. He said he has already taken steps to reorganize his staff.

Graybeal was en route to Ogden and unavailable for comment. But Weber State athletic director John Johnson has scheduled a news conference for 7 a.m. today to announce Graybeal’s hiring.

Graybeal, who had been an assistant at Eastern for 16 years, will replace Dave Arslanian, who left Weber earlier this month to replace John L. Smith as the head coach at Utah State.

Sollars, who played for Eastern in the late 1970s, has been an assistant at his alma mater for the past 17 seasons and has served two different stints as offensive coordinator since 1991. He also coached quarterbacks this fall.

Kramer said wide receivers coach Ray Williams, a part-time assistant, will probably accept a full-time position under Graybeal, and added that both secondary coach Rick Redden and defensive line coach Rick Olson are mulling offers to move to Weber.

Kramer said he has already promoted offensive line coach Paul Wulff to offensive coordinator and hopes Olson will accept his offer to remain at Eastern and replace Graybeal as defensive coordinator.

The massive shakeup on Kramer’s staff comes less than two weeks after the Eagles lost to Youngstown State in the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs to finish 12-2.

Kramer said he views the opportunity for his assistants to move on as a reward for the best season in Eastern history, noting that everyone that follows Graybeal to Weber will make considerably more money.

Graybeal and Sollars, according to Kramer, were both making a little more than $35,000 a year as coordinators on his staff. Graybeal is expected to make a base annual salary of about $65,000 at Weber, and Sollars could make close to $50,000 a year as his top assistant.

“To me, it’s all good,” Kramer said of the changes. “It’s an opportunity for them, it’s an opportunity for me and it’s an opportunity for us. We turn over 15 starters next year, so this is an opportunity for guys to get married into a new sense of coaching.

“Obviously, the structure of what we’re doing is going to remain the same - particularly the leadership at the top, so I don’t think it’s even a blip.”

Johnson, who was the athletic director at Eastern before leaving for Weber last year, came to terms with Graybeal Monday night, Kramer said.

Kramer added that he did not think the shakeup would severely hinder EWU’s recruiting efforts.

“We’ve only been recruiting a week,” he said. “The bulk of our recruiting gets done late in January. We already have a pretty good ear to the ground, and we’ve laid a solid foundation because of our success this past season.”

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