When it comes to coaching trees, Bo Pelini's isn't very big. There are all kinds of theories out there why that's the case. The most prevalent and easiest answer is that a lot of the coaches that were on Pelini's staff, especially his staff with the Nebraska football team were all pretty young. That includes former defensive coordinator John Papuchis. Despite being fairly young, it can be said that Papuchis has had the most success since party ways with Pelini when he went to Youngstown State. After a somewhat roundabout route, Papuchis is back in the Big Ten and will be taking on the Huskers next season.

Former Nebraska coach back in Big Ten

John Papuchis announced on his official Twitter account on Thursday night that he had joined the Maryland coaching staff. He's joined new head coach Mike Locksley, who has been busy putting together a staff that has looked like one that might be among the most competent the Terps have managed to land in quite some time.

Papuchis is listed as the special teams coordinator and a defensive assistant for Maryland and judging by his Twitter action since the announcement, he's jumped right into a full-on sales job for his new boss. Excitement is surrounding the Maryland program after a decent season despite a massive amount of distractions in 2018. Locksley has inherited a team with enough talent that it was able to upend the Texas Longhorns to open the season last year.

He and Papuchis, as well as the rest of the staff will be looking to build on the excitement and the talent the school has to beat better, strong and faster opponents like the Nebraska football team.

Career setback for John Papuchis

While the former Husker coach has publicly said he's very happy to be joining Maryland, his career track suffered another setback this offseason.

After being let go by the Nebraska football team, he landed on the North Carolina staff. He spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons as the school's linebacker coach. In 2017 he took over the job as the Tar Heels' defensive coordinator and held that position in the 2018 season as well.

Despite improving the defense from 99th in the country in 2017 to 72nd in the country last year, he was let go when the rest of the staff was fired after a 2-9 season.

Now John Papuchis will have to start all over and build his career back up all over again. The Nebraska football team will do its best to hand him yet another setback when the two teams clash in 2019.
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