Reinebold Staying to Finish Business

Jeff Reinebold is staying with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

After overtures from Simon Fraser University to become their new head coach, a move that had the support of alumni of the university, the former Blue Bombers head coach has decided to stay in Hamilton because, as he put it, he has “work to finish.”

Before I start lavishing praise on the man, a bit of mea culpa on my part. I BLASTED the hiring of Reinebold back in 2013, saying that I doubted he would do anything spectacular and that, at best, he would be a mediocre coordinator and how terrible of a hire it was to bring Reinebold in.

Boy was I wrong.

Over the past two seasons, Reinebold has led what is easily one of the top two or three special teams units in the CFL. Last season, three different returnmen (Brandon Banks, Quincy McDuffie and Terrell Sinkfield) won player of the week awards for their work on special teams. In 2013, Mark Beswick was the East Division nominee for Most Outstanding Special Teams Player. And let's not forget his ingenious designing of onside punts to counteract the winds at Tim Horton's Field. The success of the players under Reinebold’s tutelage speaks for itself. He may not have been great as a defensive coordinator in Montreal or as a head coach in Winnipeg, but he has become, quite possibly, the best special teams coordinator in the entire CFL.

With Reinebold spurning Simon Fraser to stay in Hamilton, he also saves Austin and Co. the unenviable task of trying to find his replacement. The pool of quality coaches is very shallow by this time in the offseason, so finding a guy who could replicate the great work Reinebold has done over the past two season would have been a near-impossible undertaking. But with Reinebold staying put, the Tiger-Cats can focus their energies on tryout camps, the upcoming draft and the start of the season.

It is never uninteresting with Jeff Reinebold around, so I look forward to seeing what new tricks he has up his sleeve so the Ti-Cats can finally finish business in 2015.

Cats Hire Reinebold

The Ti-Cats announced today that they have hired Jeff Reinebold as the team's new special teams coordinator.

This is the first piece of news since the Cortez firing/Austin hiring that I completely disagree with. Reinebold has nothing on his résumé that leads me to believe he'll be anything other than mediocre at this position. Last year, Reinebold was the defensive coordinator in Montreal and that unit was not great by any stretch of the imagination.

But perhaps the worst part of this is that last year's special teams coordinator Jim Daley was not retained. Daley, whose hiring was criticized and even laughed at (especially by the fans in Saskatchewan), coached what was easily the best special teams unit in the entire CFL. Luca Congi, Josh Bartel and Chris Williams all earned division all-star nods under Daley's guidance, and Williams was named the league's 2012 Most Outstanding Special Teams player. Daley did a remarkable job last season.

Keeping Daley would have been a smart move, but I understand that a new head coach will want to pick his own coaches. That said, replacing him with Reinebold just makes no sense to me. The last time he coached special teams was in 1995 with the Edmonton Eskimos, and he just hasn't been anything other than a mediocre coach at any of his previous stops. I am not impressed with the hire at all.

I hope Reinebold proves me wrong, but I won't be holding my breath. Sooner or later Austin was going to make a move that I didn't like and today ended up being that day.

Adios Casey Creehan

And now we can say it is official. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are in the market for a new defensive coordinator as Casey Creehan is off to Winnipeg.

When the rumours started to swirl back in November, I touched on some of the guys I thought would be candidates for the job. The list included Greg Marshall, Gary Etcheverry, Mike O'Shea, Orlondo Steinauer and Chip Garber. We can now add Jeff Reinebold to the list as well.

I won't go into detail on each of them, but I will say that Marshall, Etcheverry, O'Shea and Steinauer would be fine candidates. All of them have coordinating experience and that is something I would like to see in the next defensive coordinator. The last two hires the team has made, Casey Creehan and Corey Chamblin, cut their coordinating teeth with the Ti-Cats and neither had much success. I would pass entirely on Reinebold and Garber. They may have experience, but they haven't had success.

And if Dee Webb has his way, Orlondo Steinauer will be the guy. Webb took to Twitter earlier today to stump for the Argos defensive backs coach.

"Bring Orlondo Steinauer back to the jungle," Webb tweeted out at 9:35 this morning.

Of all the possible replacements I've named, Steinauer has the least amount of experience. He was the Argos defensive coordinator in the second half of the 2011 season after the Argos fired Chip Garber and moved back to DB coach when the Argos hired Chris Jones. I think Steinauer would make a great defensive coordinator and would support his hiring fully. He may lack the experience of the other potential candidates, but if you look at the work he did with Toronto's secondary this season, you can't help but be impressed.

Another name to remember is Tim Tibesar. He was named the defensive coordinator in Montreal last year before abruptly leaving that position to take up the same one at Purdue University. But with the firing of Purdue head coach Danny Hope, Tibesar is free. He might be a long shot, but he has CFL experience, so keep his name in the back of your mind.

Unlike last year's head coaching search, I don't expect this coaching search to last almost six weeks. The Ti-Cats will do their due diligence, but they probably won't drag this out. I don't know when a new defensive coordinator will be named, but I'd be surprised if we didn't know who he was before Santa comes down the chimney.