When Tommy Tuberville faced the first defensive coordinator opening of his Auburn career back in 2002, he turned to Paul Rhoads.
Rhoads, then the defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh, passed on the offer at the time.
Six years later, Tuberville came calling again. And this time, he got his man.
After eight seasons at Pitt, Rhoads decided it was time for a change. He accepted Tuberville’s job offer Thursday and began work at AU on Friday.
It’s just the fourth coaching stop of Rhoads’ 17-year career.
“My profession is very nomadic, but if you look at my track record, I don’t follow that,” Rhoads said Friday. “I’ve been very stable in my stops and my progression along the way.
That philosophy of stability was what kept him from taking the Auburn job in ’02, when it eventually went to Gene Chizik.
“After two years at Pittsburgh, after just taking over and getting started on what we felt was a very exciting run, I didn’t think it was time to uproot that quickly,” Rhoads said. “We had a very good football team. … That’s why it wasn’t right at the time.
“For the reasons that it wasn’t right at that time, it has been now, and I’m very eager and excited to be here.”
Rhoads isn’t starting slowly: He is jumping directly in to Auburn’s recruiting efforts, with a full schedule of trips starting next week.
This weekend, he plans to be involved with the Tigers’ 10 official visitors, who arrived on campus Friday.
“I will be jumping into it with both feet,” he said. “I’m looking forward to meeting all of the recruits and their families.”
Meeting his current players will be a longer process. Rhoads said he’d met a few AU players in his first day, but joked it would take a while to learn names.
He also said he’ll take his time when it comes to making changes to the Tigers’ defense, which ranked sixth nationally in total defense last season.
“I think the obvious is that Auburn finished sixth in the country in total defense,” Rhoads said. “So coming in with a broom and sweeping everything clean and making wholesale adjustments and changes would be quite foolish.”
Rhoads is no stranger to good defenses: His units finished 31st or better in the total defense rankings five times in his eight seasons at Pitt. The Panthers ranked fifth nationally last season.
“We’re excited to have Paul join our staff,” Tuberville said in a statement released by Auburn. “He fit everything that we were looking for in a defensive coordinator. Paul brings great experience and enthusiasm, he’s a great recruiter and I really like his philosophy on teaching techniques and fundamentals.”
Rhoads, 40, coached linebackers last season at Pittsburgh, but spent the previous seven years coaching defensive backs, the position he will coach at Auburn.
Rhoads coached five Pittsburgh defensive backs who were drafted by NFL teams over the last six years. That list includes Darrelle Revis, a 2006 Thorpe Award Finalist who was drafted No. 14 overall by the New York Jets.
A native of Ankeny, Iowa, Rhoads was a three-year letterman at Missouri Western from 1986-88, playing defensive back. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Missouri Western.
Before Pittsburgh, Rhoads coached five seasons at Iowa State. He began as an inside linebackers coach in 1995, then coached the secondary from 1996-99.
From 1992-94, Rhoads coached defensive backs at Pacific, where he worked with current AU defensive tackles coach Don Dunn and Tuberville assistant Andy Lutz.
He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Utah State from 1989-90 and worked as a graduate assistant at Ohio State in 1991.

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