Bears to hire Oregon State’s Michael Pitre as new running backs coach: report

The Bears are almost done restocking their coaching staff after an offseason of heavy turnover.

Most of the changes have been on defense, but coach Matt Nagy lost running backs coach Charles London and passing-game coordinator Dave Ragone. Ragone is now the offensive coordinator for the Falcons, and London is the quarterbacks coach.

Oregon State running backs coach Michael Pitre will replace London, ESPN reported Wednesday. He coached current Bears running back Artavis Pierce.

This is a breakthrough opportunity for Pitre, who has been with Oregon State the last three seasons and held the same position at Montana State in 2014-17.

Nagy doesn’t necessarily need to replace Ragone. When the Bears hired John DeFilippo as their quarterbacks coach a year ago, Nagy promoted Ragone to a position that hadn’t existed on the staff.

That’s the only change offensively going into next season. Defensively, though, the Bears will have at least four new position coaches under recently promoted coordinator Sean Desai.