Wayne State College football has hired three new coaching staff this offseason in preparation for the upcoming 2017 season.

 
Head Coach Dan McLaughlin announced in February the hiring of the first new addition to the WSC football coaching staff, special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach Denny Honnold.

 
“I am extremely excited for the opportunity,” Honnold said. “It has been a good spring so far getting to know some of the players.”

 
Honnold is a 13-year veteran of collegiate football coaching. He spent the previous three years as the defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Robert Morris University in Chicago.

 
RMU was 7-4 last year and ranked 15th in the final NAIA poll. The team allowed roughly 114 rushing yards per game and in 2014, his defense allowed only 280 yards of offense per game, good for fifth best in the NAIA.

 
Honnold served six seasons as a defensive assistant at Missouri Valley College, where the team qualified for the NAIA playoffs five out of six seasons he was there. Other schools Honnold has coached include St. Cloud State, Fort Scott Community College and North Iowa Area Community College.

 
“I am looking forward to building relationships with the guys over the next several months,” Honnold said. “I’ve worked a lot with special teams but I have never coordinated it. It has been a fun and new challenge for me.”

 
In March, McLaughlin announced the hiring of two more new coaches, quarterbacks coach Ben Curran and running backs coach Paul Thomas.

 
“It has been a good transition,” Curran said. “We’ve got a good group of guys that are working hard right now and I’ve enjoyed it.”

 
Curran spent the previous three years at Upper Iowa as the wide receivers coach. The Peacock offense ranked in the top half of the league in offense, averaging over 425 yards per game passing.

Curran also spent two years as a graduate assistant at St. Cloud State.

 
Curran was Upper Iowa’s quarterback from 2008-2010 and is third in school history in passing yards (4,625), total offense (5,046), completions (422) and passing attempts (753).

 
“It’s been a fun process,” Curran said. “We’ve got some talent offensively and we’ve worked on fine tuning.”

 
The third and final addition announced by McLaughlin is the new running backs coach, Thomas.

 
Thomas was a graduate assistant running backs coach for Truman State from 2013-15 and was also a student assistant running backs coach at Missouri Valley College from 2010-13.

 
“I am really excited to be a part of a great program and a great college,” Thomas said. “For the fall, I expect us to be competitive in every game.”

 
WSC football is allowed to practice 15 times this spring, with practices taking place Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3:45 p.m. and Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m.

 
WSC will showcase their preparation with the annual spring scrimmage that will take place this Saturday at Cunningham field at 1 p.m.