BYU Football OL Coach Eric Mateos Joins Jeff Grimes At Baylor In Same Role

PROVO, Utah – BYU football offensive line coach Eric Mateos is joining Jeff Grimes’ offensive staff with the Baylor Bears. Mateos will take on the same position he held at BYU in Waco.

Welcome to Baylor, @CoachMateos!

» https://t.co/fCHjCvvUJ2#SicEm | #BUiltDifferent pic.twitter.com/pLDBtLiaW9

— Baylor Football (@BUFootball) January 8, 2021

Baylor’s offensive line position became open once Jeff Grimes filled the offensive coordinator vacancy earlier this week. Grimes turned to a familiar name in Ryan Pugh, who coached at BYU in 2018, but after one day of being the Bears offensive line coach, Baylor head coach Dave Aranda announced they were moving on from Pugh.

Baylor AD Mack Rhoades was asked about why Pugh was dismissed from Baylor during an interview with ESPN Central Texas, and Rhoades said, “Because it’s a personnel issue, I’m going to be very sensitive around this.

“But obviously, when you make a hire, you do an extensive amount of due diligence … including professional background checks, and not just background checks, but phone calls, conversations, all those things. After we had done all those things, and after we had announced the hire, there were just some things where we felt like we needed to go in another direction. That’s probably the best way that I can explain it.”

Eric Mateos headed to Baylor

All attention then zeroed in on Mateos, who oversaw a BYU offensive line unit that was an Honor Roll nominee for the Joe Moore Award, a trophy given to the top offensive line unit in college football. BYU’s offensive line in 2020 produced a first-team AP All-American in Brady Christensen this past season.

Christensen, who declared for the NFL Draft, told KSL Sports last week that Mateos “taught him things [at offensive tackle] that he never knew before.”

The two-year position coach at BYU incorporated wide zone blocking schemes and displayed a passion for the offensive line unit during his time with the Cougars. He was also instrumental in helping the Cougars land 2020 prospect Jake Griffin (currently serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and a handful of 2021 recruits.

BYU’s offense in 2020 was No. 3 in scoring offense averaging 43.5 points per game. The Cougars averaged 190.1 yards per game on the ground utilizing a wide zone-blocking scheme to produce BYU’s first 1,000-yard running back (Tyler Allgeier) since 2016 (Jamaal Williams).

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m., KSL Newsradio). Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper and the KSL Sports app.