On Monday, reports surfaced of Stanford hiring two coaches to coach their offensive line unit after the departure of Klayton Adams for the Arizona Cardinals: Former Yale co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Al Netter and former Northern Arizona offensive line coach Viane Talamaivao. CardinalSportsReport.com has been able to confirm that both coaches will be coming on board Troy Taylor’s staff.
It has also been learned that if Tavita Pritchard does indeed leave to take a position with the Washington Commanders as has been reported, Taylor will not hire a new quarterbacks coach. Taylor will presumably take on that role in addition to manning the offensive coordinator duties.
Going back to Netter and Talamaivao, below is more information on both courtesy of the Yale and Northern Arizona team websites.
Netter: Al Netter, a former San Francisco 49er and Northwestern University player who coached in the Big 10 three seasons, became Yale's offensive line coach in 2018.Netter helped Dieter Eiselen and Sterling Strother earn All-Ivy honors in his first campaign at New Haven. Eiselen also went on to earn All-America honors during Yale's 2019 Ivy League Championship season and was then signed by the Chicago Bears.Netter was promoted to run game coordinator in March of 2020.
Netter, who spent the 2015, 2016 and 2017 campaigns as a Michigan offensive graduate assistant coach, worked with the Wolverines’ offensive line.
Prior to joining the UM staff, Netter played three (2012-14) seasons on the offensive line for the 49ers under head coach Jim Harbaugh, who he later joined at Ann Arbor.
Yale’s new coach was a four-year letterman and four-year (2008-11) starter on the offensive line for Northwestern University. He started all 52 career games for the Wildcats, where he helped block for an offense which rolled up 5,417 yards of total offense in 2011.
Netter earned his bachelor's degree in economics from Northwestern and master's from Michigan in sports management. He attended Cardinal Newman High School, where he earned All-North Coast Section first-team honors and was an all-region selection by Rivals.com as a senior.
Talamaivao: Talamaivao, a Pac-12 All-Conference Honorable Mention honoree and Freshman All-American, started 37 games at guard for USC between 2014 and 2017 before spending time with the Seattle Seahawks and Jacksonville Jaguars during the 2018 NFL season. During his playing career, USC went 38-16 overall and 27-9 in the Pac-12 with two appearances in the Holiday Bowl, one in the Rose Bowl and one in the Cotton Bowl.
During his senior season, Talamaivao won the team's Trojan Commitment Award.Rejoining his alma mater in 2019 as a graduate assistant, Talamaivao spent two seasons as a graduate assistant with USC before moving to an offensive quality control analyst position in 2021.
During his time on the USC staff, the Trojans went 17-14 overall with a 15-8 Pac-12 record. Moving to the Oregon Ducks as a graduate assistant this past fall, Talamaivao worked on the staff as the team finished 9-3 with a 7-2 record in the Pac-12.
During his time as a coach and player, Talamaivao has either played or coached under head coaches Steve Sarkisian, Clay Helton and Dan Lanning.In 2019, USC offensive tackle Austin Jackson made the All-Pac-12 First Team and in 2020, offensive tackle Alijah-Vera Tucker also made the All-Pac-12 First Team in addition to being named the Pac-12 Conference's Offensive Morris Trophy winner given to the top lineman.
Both Jackson and Tucker went on to be drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft and currently start for the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets respectively.Talamaivao received his bachelor's degree in business administration in 2018 and worked toward a master's degree in communication management from USC during his graduate assistantship.
It'll be interesting to see how both coaches will work together on the offensive line and how that dynamic will play out. It should be noted that Talamaivao was hired by Northern Arizona back in December, so he wasn’t there for too long. But given the opening at Stanford, one can’t exactly blame him for taking this opportunity.
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