Arizona State football coach Todd Graham on Monday named longtime assistant Paul Randolph to his growing staff in Tempe.
Randolph was named senior associate head coach, reuniting with Graham after serving under him as associate head coach, co-defensive coordinate and defensive line coach at Pittsburgh last season.
Randolph has spent the past six seasons on Graham's staffs. Randolph began his work with Graham at Rice, Graham's first head coaching job, in 2006 when the Owls returned to a bowl game for the first time in 45 years. He then followed Graham to Tulsa and to Pittsburgh last year.
Graham and Randolph first worked together in 2002 at West Virginia under current UA coach Rich Rodriguez. Graham was a co-defensive coordinator, while Randolph coached the defensive line. The next season, Randolph coached defensive ends at Alabama, where he remained until joining Graham at Rice.
Though Graham is still building his staff and has not assigned titles to any of the seven staffers he's now hired, Randolph seems a candidate for the defensive coordinator position.
Reports indicated Graham wanted to hire Keith Patterson, his defensive coordinator at Pitt last year who was named interim coach upon Graham's exit, but Patterson took the defensive coordinator job at Arkansas State under former Graham offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.
The addition of Randolph is the second from Graham's Pitt staff. Graham made Mike Norvell his first ASU hire after Norvell served as co-offensive coordinator at Pitt.
Randolph's resume also includes coaching stops at Tennessee-Martin (1998), Valdosta State (1999), Illinois State (2000), Toledo (2001) and the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes (1996-97).
