Colorado suddenly has a vacancy on its football coaching staff.
On Monday, defensive line coach Vic So’oto, who was hired on Dec. 30, informed Buffaloes head coach Karl Dorrell that he has decided to leave the program for family reasons and take a coaching position in his home state of California.
“It is disappointing we’re losing Vic after just two months, but this is purely family related,” Dorrell said in a press release from CU. “He has five young children and with most of both sides of his family living in California, they can use the additional support. So we understand why he wants to take advantage of an opportunity to move back and be closer to them.”
So’oto and his wife have three sons and two daughters.
According to CU, a search to fill the vacancy is already underway. Spring football practices begin on March 30, with the spring game on April 23.
After coaching the defensive line at Southern California the past two seasons, So’oto was one of six new assistants hired by Dorrell this offseason.
So’oto, 34, was a first-team All-Mountain West performer at BYU and played for six different NFL teams from 2011-14.
In 2015, he went back to BYU as a coaching intern for Bronco Mendenhall. After that season, Mendenhall took the head coaching job at Virginia and brought So’oto with him as a graduate assistant. By 2017, So’oto was the Cavaliers’ defensive line coach, a position he held for three seasons before going to USC.
With USC going through a head coaching change this offseason, So’oto became available. CU and Dorrell were eager to get him and even had defensive coordinator Chris Wilson shift his role to coaching the Buffs’ outside linebackers. Wilson has coached defensive line for much of his 30-year career, including the past two years at CU.
With So’oto leaving, it’s unclear if the Buffs will replace him with a defensive line coach or outside linebackers coach.