Who is Darren Rizzi? What coaching experience does the new Saints' head coach have?

The New Orleans Saints lost their seventh straight game on Sunday and to the lowly Carolina Panthers no less, their divisional rival. On Monday, they fired head coach Dennis Allen.

The Saints now sit at 2-7 on the season, with their only two wins coming in the first two weeks of the season. Allen was only in his third season as the head coach after having been the defensive coordinator since 2015. He went 16-18 in those first two years

Who is Darren Rizzi?

As of now, the interim head coach will be the Saints' special teams coordinator, Darren Rizzi. Rizzi has been with the Saints as the special teams coordinator since 2019. He was chosen over second-year defensive coordinator Joe Woods and first-year offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.

Rizzi does have head coaching experience. The 54-year-old began his coaching career in 1993 as a graduate assistant at Colgate University in New York and continued coaching at the collegiate level (as head coach, defensive line coach, linebackers coach and defensive coordinator) until 2010. During that time, he served as head coach for four seasons - three seasons at the University of New Haven in Connecticut (1999-2001) and one season at Rhode Island in 2008. His overall record as a head coach during those four years was 18-23.

In 2010, he began working for the Miami Dolphins as their special teams coordinator, where he stayed until 2019. That’s when former Saints head coach Sean Payton hired him for that same role in New Orleans. When Dennis Allen took over in 2022, he promoted Rizzi to assistant head coach.

Depending on how well Rizzi performs in this new role, he could be a potential candidate to keep the job past this season. He did apply to be the HC the same season Allen was hired. He also interviewed to be the head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 2019, a role that was given to Brian Flores instead. Now is his chance to prove he deserves the job, and he has eight games to do it.