Less than a day after announcing the first new hire for his coaching staff, West Virginia State coach John Pennington added two more coaches to his team by bringing in Travis Everhart and Reed Williams.
Everhart will serve as the team's assistant coach and co-offensive coordinator while coaching the offensive line. Williams will be West Virginia State's linebackers coach and will also be the academic coordinator.
"We've got a good young staff here and we're really excited to bring these guys in and get to work," Pennington said. "Travis is an experienced coach who has done just about everything - he's been a strength coach, a coordinator, a position coach - and he wants to be back in Charleston. And Reed is a really bright guy that I trust a lot and he's a good friend of mine. We're excited to see what they can add to our program."
Everhart comes to West Virginia State from Fort Valley State where he was the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for a team that won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship in 2016. Before that, he coached wide receivers, as well as tight ends and fullbacks, and was the special teams coordinator at the University of Charleston.
Bringing in someone with experience calling plays and running an offense was important for Pennington, who said he still plans on having an active role in calling plays as well but knows that there will be plenty of added duties for him now that he is a head coach.
"He has a lot of great experience on the offensive side of the ball and I knew I was going to need someone I really trusted to be able to move the offense forward while I'm doing other things," Pennington said. "We're very close with his family and he's a great guy and I was very happy when he told me he wanted to come here and coach with us."
This will be Williams' first role as a position coach at the college ranks. The former WVU linebacker who was the defensive MVP in the Mountaineers' victory over Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl finished his college career with 253 tackles and was an academic All-American.
After finishing his playing career he became a graduate assistant for Rich Rodriguez at Arizona and spent a year on the academic staff at West Virginia.
"Reed has that special 'it' factor that we think will really help him become a great coach here with our linebackers. Then in his academic role we think he'll be a key player in helping us keep players here and it's important to bring in someone who knows what they're doing and we thought Reed fit that role perfectly."