Potential Tight Ends Coach: Heath Pulver

So as you may have heard, UB lost their tight ends coach yesterday. While we all wish Alan Hensell all the best, time sleeps for no blog...

So let’s lookaround for potential replacements.

Not because I think we will be right, because lord knows my track record on “who will we hire for football” is pretty awful. But let’s look around cause it’s fun.

I started by looking at some of the best year over year special team units in the FCS, figuring we’re not going to poach an assistant from an FBS school. While that could happen, I don’t think it’s likely.

After that let’s look for a special teams coach on those teams, who also happens to have some experience with the offensive line or wide receivers. Or, ideally, Tight end.

Throw all of that into the Bull Run “coach search-o-matic” and what do you end up with but...

Heath Pulver, Tight ends and special teams coach at Eastern Washington University fits UB’s needs quite nicely.

Pulver’s special teams units were in the top quarter of FCS programs in kick coverage and punt coverage. And Their Kicker, Seth Harrison, was a perfect 12-12 on the year.

It’s not a top ten unit but it’s solid all around, they don’t make the kinds of mistakes that costs his team games. They also have a solid field goal unit all around.

In 2018 Pulver’s units were 1st in punting and field goal percentage in the country.

As a tight ends coach he has produced some excellent blocking ends that

He also put Jayce Gilder on the Big-West all conference team this season. Gilder and two others combined to catch 38 passes for 537 yards and 12 touchdowns from the tight end position in 2018. They also helped their offensive line run for 6.62 yards per attempt.

Will this happen? Probably not. His roots are all over the west, which would not be bad for Buffalo, but it may mean he does not want to uproot and move to the east coast.

Still, he checks off a lot of boxes.