It was officially announced that Bryan Bossard was hired as the WR coach.

Bossard coached the Terps receivers for the past three seasons and prior to that he coached receivers at Delaware from 2002-04. He has previously worked under Wannstedt — as a summer intern with the Chicago Bears in 1996 and 1997 — and he was a standout defensive back at Delaware from 1985-88.

This had been known for a while, but was just made official. Bossard was fired from his gig at Maryland shortly after losing the Emerald Bowl. In the game, several passes were dropped by receivers.

“Surprised? Probably not,” Bossard said yesterday.

“It’s part of the business. Whenever things don’t go as planned, someone’s always got to take the fall. I think we made plays, too. I would hope it’s not just off of one game. But again, who knows? You’re asking the wrong person why this happened.”

Bossard said Friedgen started scrutinizing the wide receiving corps during a three-game slide during this season.

Meantime, injuries took their toll. Danny Oquendo and LaQuan Williams suffered injuries that knocked them out of action toward the end of the season, forcing the team to use younger players such as redshirt freshman Emani Lee-Odai.

No strong feelings one way or the other on this. He’s a Delaware grad and I’m amused that his two sons are named Xen and Xyon. The hope is that he will help with inroads into Maryland and Virginia for recruiting.

There was also the hiring of a couple graduate assistants.

Wannstedt also announced the additional of graduate assistants Scott Turner and Greg Williams. Turner, the son of San Diego Chargers coach Norv Turnrer, will focus on the offense, while Williams works with the defense.

The bigger news is that Pitt had yet another assistant leave for a new job.

Pitt special teams coordinator Charlie Partridge has resigned to become the defensive line coach and will work with specialists at Wisconsin. Partridge has been with the Panthers since the 2003 season in various capacities.

“Charlie is an excellent young coach and I am very appreciative of the contributions he made to our program,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We certainly wish him and his family the very best in his new opportunity.”

He is the fifth Pitt assistant to leave Wannstedt’s staff since the end of the season.

You would think Pitt had played in a BCS bowl the way the staff has been picked apart this off-season.

Partridge was offered the job a couple years ago when Bret Bielema took over as head coach at Wisconsin.

Partridge came to Pitt under Walt Harris in 2003 and was retained when Wannstedt took over before the 2005 season. That’s why Partridge didn’t feel comfortable leaving a year later to join Bielema’s first staff.

“Essentially, I was out of a job,” Partridge said after Harris left for Stanford. “Coach Wannstedt came in, to make a long story short, he had the trust and faith to keep me on staff. I built a good relationship with him, but I couldn’t leave Pitt after one year, do that to him.”

Partridge’s wife’s family lives only a couple hours from Madison and Partridge was a college roommate of Wisconsin’s Defensive Coordinator, Dave Doeren. It is expected that Partridge will take over a lot of Florida recruiting from Doerento allow him to focus more on coordinator duties.

As for who Pitt will hire to take the job, there are a couple of internal possibilities. Sam Clancy is being mentioned — he came back to Pittsburgh a couple years ago to finish his degree and help as a volunteer assistant coach with the D-line. Bob Junko might be brought out of administrative duties to handle special teams. Gattuso might move to coach linebackers from the D-line.

I have to believe Pitt has to hire someone, though. The loss of Partridge and Hill means there are no assistant coaches with ties or connections to Florida. Pitt may not have focused too hard on Florida this past recruiting season, but it is too vital a state with too much talent to ignore.

As for the loss of Partridge, well, you hate to lose a top recruiter. That was his best quality as a coach. He was considered one of Pitt’s best recruiters on the staff.

The coaching acumen, I’m not exactly sure Pitt is losing too much. Pitt’s special teams haven’t been too impressive (think about the USF fake punts), and Pitt actually uses some starters on special teams. D-lien wasn’t exactly a strength when he was working with them. The linebacking corp that he and the departed Rhoads worked, didn’t exactly develop beyond MLB Scott McKillop.