U of S hires temporary co-head coaches to tune up Huskies

As the hard work of finding a new head coach begins, the University of Saskatchewan has announced that two former Huskies football players will temporarily share the top bench job.

Brian Guebert and Scott Flory will serve as interim co-head coaches.

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In a news release, Huskies quarterback Kyle Siemens praised the move.

"Both Coach Flory and Coach Guebert have made positive impacts to our student-athlete careers," said Siemens. "As former student-athletes, they know firsthand what it takes to be successful as a student and an athlete."

Flory and Guebert both have experience on the U of S coaching staff, and have experience playing not only at the college level, but also as professionals in the CFL — Flory with the Montreal Alouettes and Guebert with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The two are tasked with getting the team ready for the 2017 season.

"We have a great group of players in the locker room here. We made some great strides last year and we're just looking forward to preparing these guys to make even greater strides next year," said Guebert.

The two new coaches say they will focus on conditioning and strength training as well as filling the gaps in their team left from players that graduated last year. 

The posting for the full-time head coach closes at the end of this month, with an announcement expected in early March.

The search follows the resignation last month of 33-year head coach Brian Towriss.

Known as "BT," the 60-year-old holds the national record of 196 wins by a football coach. He has also coached the most games in university sport, having led the team through 315 games.

The way his departure was originally handled proved to be controversial. The U of S apologized and promised the departure of the legendary coach would be celebrated.

Having been coached by BT, Guebert says the current squad owes a lot to its old coach. 

"He had an incredible legacy with this program. He laid a great foundation for us to continue building this team." 

Flory said he owes a lot of his success to BT and mentorship.

"I was fortunate enough that we played on some good teams and I got recognized, had a chance to go play pro and he's a big part of that," said Flory. "I have an enormous amount of respect for that man." 

Flory said he still keeps in touch with his old coach, and he and Guebert know that he will always be willing to help.

"I talk to BT all the time, I talked him this morning," said Flory."I'm sure if I asked he'd offer up some advice."

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