San Diego Chargers: Who is Steve Fairchild?

The San Diego Chargers are apparently heading into the 2012 season without an actual Offensive Coordinator, but earlier this week they hired recently-fired Head Coach of the Colorado State Rams Steve Fairchild to be their "Senior Offensive Assistant/Special Assignments". I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like he'll be filling Clarence Shelmons shoes as the inaccurately-titled Running Backs Coach.

Earlier today I e-mailed Jeremy Mauss from Mountain West Connection to get some background on Fairchild and see what went wrong at Colorado State.

Jeremy:

Steve Fairchild was good at recruiting, but that does not matter at the NFL level.

He liked the running game a lot and called a conservative game but that could be due to never really having a lot of talent on offensive line or running backs. This past year Chris Nwoke did pretty good with 1,130 yards. He had QB Pete Thomas who was ranked high out of high school and started from day one, but Fairchild regulated him to quick slants or variations of a screen pass over the past two seasons. The offense never opened up until the game was out of hand and then he would start passing the ball around.

However, going to the Chargers with Phillip Rivers I have a hard time believing that he will stick to his plan at Colorado State of a tight game plan with an emphasis on the running game. But, I would expect for him to implement more of a running game to be balanced because that was his ultimate goal at Colorado State.

Me:

As long as he's good with the running game, that's all we really need and all he'll really be allowed to do.

Jeremy:

Yeah, he forced the running game with limited success at CSU, so it looks like he should fit in.