Ryan Dinwiddie and Scott Milanovich were hired on the same day to be the head coaches of the Toronto Argonauts and Edmonton Eskimos, respectively.
They have a lot in common.
Dinwiddie is 39, the same age Milanovich was when he got his first head-coaching job with the Toronto Argonauts in 2012.
Both are former backup quarterbacks who learned from offensive gurus like Marc Trestman (for Milanovich) and Dave Dickenson (for Dinwiddie).
And if Dinwiddie is going to be as successful as Milanovich as a head coach — winning coach of the year and a Grey Cup in his first season — he needs to make the proper hires.
Milanovich brought in Chris Jones to run his defence, and retained good young coaches in Orlondo Steinauer and Mike O’Shea. He had Jason Maas handle his quarterbacks and veteran Stephen McAdoo along the offensive line.
Milanovich didn’t hire a bunch of friends, he hired people who were good leaders.
Dinwiddie’s inexperience is minor if he puts the right people in place. If he doesn’t, he could be a one-and-done rookie head coach like his former Calgary co-worker, DeVone Claybrooks.