Rusty Wright's initial University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coaching staff officially added four assistants Thursday.
Joining former UTC quarterback and new tight ends coach Jacob Huesman and defensive line coach Kenny Baker - whose hires were confirmed to the Times Free Press on Wednesday - are offensive coordinator Joe Pizzo and special teams coach and defensive assistant Mike Yeager.
"We are excited to get these guys in here and get to work," Wright said in a statement released by the university. "I have known and worked with each of them, and that familiarity will help us quickly settle in as a staff. We are eager to get the semester started so we can get the current team back on campus and prepare for a very important recruiting period.
Pizzo, a veteran assistant, led Mercer University's offense this past season to an average of 30 points per game, the most for the Bears since 2014.
Mercer's success came despite injuries to its top two quarterbacks, McCallie School alumnus Robert Riddle and Calhoun High School graduate Kaelan Riley. The team ranked third among the Football Championship Subdivision's 124 programs in red-zone offense, scoring points on 92 percent of its trips inside the 20-yard line.
In 30 years of coaching, Pizzo has been known for balanced offenses. This past season, Mercer averaged 377 yards per game - 231 passing and 146 rushing - and had five offensive players earn All-Southern Conference honors.
Before joining the Bears last March, Pizzo spent the previous five seasons as the offensive coordinator at Division II North Greenville University in South Carolina, where his units averaged more than 400 yards per game. In 2011 the program had its first 2,000-yard passer, its first 1,000-yard rusher and its first 1,000-yard receiver.
Pizzo also worked 14 seasons at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, the final 10 as offensive coordinator. Five of his quarterbacks were among the school's top 10 all-time passers.
Pizzo is a graduate of Mars Hill in North Carolina, where he was a Division II All-America quarterback in 1987 and is in the school's athletic hall of fame. After college, he spent time with the NFL's Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions.
According to a UTC release, Yeager was the defensive coordinator this past season at Ohio's Tiffin University, a D-II program. He was the head coach at Carthage College, a D-III program in Kenosha, Wisconsin, from 2013 to 2017, and he handled that role on an interim basis the final three games in 2012, his second straight year as Carthage's defensive coordinator.
Yeager was a defensive assistant at Big Ten program Indiana for five years (2006-10).
Chris Malone's hiring as the new offensive line coach was confirmed to the Times Free Press by sources within the UTC athletic department on Wednesday - along with the hiring of Baker and Huesman - but has not officially been announced by the university. Those sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because such an announcement had not been made yet.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.