After his first season as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, former ASU defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce was fired by the NFL franchise on Tuesday.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!In his lone year as head coach, Pierce and the Raiders went 4-13. Vegas has not made the playoffs for the past three seasons, and will have the No. 6 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Originally starting his coaching career in the NFL, the California native took the linebackers coaching job in Las Vegas in 2022. He then became the interim head coach in 2023 and was officially named the Raiders’ head coach this year.
The Raiders released the following statement on X/Twitter:
“The Las Vegas Raiders have relieved Antonio Pierce of his duties as head coach. We appreciate Antonio’s leadership, first as an interim head coach and this past season as the head coach. Antonio grew up a Raiders fan and his Silver and Black roots run deep. We are grateful for his ability to reignite what it means to be a Raider throughout the entire organization. We wish nothing but the best for Antonio and his family in the future.”
— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) January 7, 2025
The 46-year-old coached at ASU from 2017-22 under former head coach Herm Edwards. While Pierce was in Tempe, the Sun Devils went 25-18 and won the 2019 Sun Bowl over Florida State, 20-14.
He was the defensive coordinator, associate head coach, linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator for Arizona State until he resigned in 2022. The NCAA underwent an investigation on ASU and found that Pierce committed multiple recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Sun Devils were penalized with four years of probation, recruiting restrictions, fewer scholarships, forced to vacate each game an ineligible player played in and received an undisclosed fine. ASU imposed a one-year bowl ban on itself in the 2023 season, which ended up not mattering because the team went 3-9.
Now that Pierce has parted ways with the Raiders, another team in the NFL could hire him to fulfill a role but any possibility of him returning to college football is slim to none. Pierce received an eight-year show-cause order from the NCAA for the recruiting violations the program committed as a whole.
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Reporter Alec Cipollini covers the Phoenix Suns, ASU Athletics, Arizona Diamondbacks and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
