The Pittsburgh Steelers have hired former Akron head coach and Los Angeles Chargers pass-game coordinator Tom Arth as quarterbacks coach, a team source confirmed to Steelers Now. The news was first reported by Aaron Wilson of KPRC-TV.
Arth, 42, comes to the Steelers after two seasons as pass game specialist for the Los Angeles Chargers, where he helped work with quarterback Justin Herbert. Before that, he had a long tenure as a college head coach.
A college quarterback at Division-III John Carroll near Cleveland, Arth spent three seasons with the Indianapolis Colts as a backup to Peyton Manning and bounced between the NFL Europe, CFL, practice squads and the Arena Football league after that.
He got his start in coaching at his alma mater in 2010 and three years later, was promoted to head coach. With the Blue Streaks, Arth directed records of 9-2, 11-2, 8-2 and 12-2, making it to the NCAA Tournament three times. In 2016, he took John Carroll all the way to the NCAA Semifinals, the best playoff finish in modern team history.
That was a springboard to a job at Tennessee-Chattanooga at the FCS. The Mocs were a middling 9-13 over Arth’s two years there, but he again levied into a promotion to be the head coach at Akron at the FBS level.
The Zips, a historically struggling program, went winless in Arth’s first year and did not get much better, winning one game in 2020 and two in 2021, despite Arth generally being seen as a good hire for the program.
He was fired on Nov. 4, 2021, and hired by the Chargers for the 2022 season to be their pass-game specialist.
After posting passer ratings of 98.3 and 97.7 in his first two years, Herbert regressed in 2022 and 2023, leading to the firing of head coach Brandon Staley.
With the Steelers, Arth will hope to have better luck with Kenny Pickett, who did improve from his first year to his second year under offensive coordinator Matt Canada and quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan.
Canada was fired by the Steelers mid-season. Sullivan is reportedly being retained by the staff in some capacity. In addition to Arth, the team hired former New York Jets assistant Zach Azzanni as wide receivers coach.
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