One day after the athletics department announced Adam Weber as his replacement, former Gophers graduate assistant Ryan Maiuri paced the sidelines of Minnesota's practice facility Tuesday with a pencil and paper taking notes. Maiuri, who held the graduate assistant position for two seasons working with the Gophers offense and quarterbacks in particular, was taking in some final observations from Minnesota's practices before being introduced as Central College's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

The Division III Iowa school's head coach, Jeff McMartin, confirmed the official hiring to the Minnesota Daily on Wednesday. McMartin coached with Gophers defensive line coach Jeff Phelps at DePauw University about 15 years ago, which helped Maiuri in the interview process. 

"I trust Jeff's judgment and he put in a good word for Ryan," McMartin said.

But after sifting through more than 300 job applications, McMartin came to his decision when Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill called him out of the blue to endorse Maiuri as well. 

"Not a lot of coaches would do that," McMartin said. "That really struck me."

Maiuri has experience in the Division III level as a quarterback at Lakeland College in Wisconsin. Minnesota quarterbacks coach Jim Zebrowski was the head coach at Lakeland at the time.