Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Dana Holgorsen needs to fill a vacancy in his football program. Dana Holgorsen hires someone with a law degree and no experience in college football as a player, coach or administrator. Dana Holgorsen nevertheless makes an intriguing and seemingly appropriate hire.

What was true of Daron Roberts as the inside receivers coach — an  apparent recruiting whiz — in May is now also true of Alex Hammond, the new coordinator of recruiting operations. While Roberts had some experience in the NFL, this is Hammond’s first job in football.

“From the moment I left high school, I understood I was never going to be a player, but I wanted to put myself in a position where I could rise into a leadership position in some way,” said Hammond, who was on two state championship teams at Cathedral High in Indianapolis and was academic All-State as a senior.

“I believe when you have a passion for something it’s going to make you better at your job. You understand every nuance and you enjoy every nuance.”

This is another non-traditional decision by Holgorsen and actually one of the benefits of hiring Roberts. Hammond and Roberts attended Texas together and worked in high-level positions in student government there. They also shared with one another their preposterous thoughts on their futures and, quite improbably, not only made it happen, but ended up here.

And say this about Holgorsen: He isn’t worried about mowing the lawn in the opposite direction. He hasn’t hired a receivers coach who was a receivers coach, or a G.A., somewhere else. He didn’t get a recruiting guy who’d done the same work in the Big XII or SEC before. Yet I’d ask you to find more impressive resumes.

Someone might have better football qualifications, but who’s to say the work Roberts and Hammond have put in in their pasts doesn’t prepare them for a football future?

Hammond’s job is strictly administrative and Holgorsen still has that spot on the coaching staff to fill — and, boy, has he set the bar high for that hire.

The added allure of Hammond is pretty simple. He doesn’t want to coach. Remember that NCAA thing that ended, oh, 60 hours ago? The big problem WVU had was it employed a bunch of people who wanted to be coaches. And those people were guilty of acting like coaches in times in which they were not supposed to be acting like coaches. And one of those people was the recruiting coordinator.

Now Luck and Holgorsen have a guy they won’t have to worry will step out of bounds. And they are doubly assured because Hammond, who is just 30, spent the past three years working for the NCAA. I’m pretty sure he’ll understand the boundaries of his position

“The easiest way to trip up right now in the world of intercollegiate athletics is with the NCAA and, quite honestly, I’m paranoid about it,” Luck said. “With Alex, now we have one more really good person to help us stay away from that sort of trouble.”

So Hammond is one part watchdog and one part head of recruiting, which involves constant adherence to compliance. He’ll have no more important responsibility than making sure the daily recruiting activities occur within the rules, but he’ll also have the significant task of organizing recruiting visits to campus.

“When a kid comes in, we want West Virginia to have a certain swag to it that they’re maybe not seeing when they go on other official visits,” he said. “That may not have a direct correlation to recruiting, per se, but it’s all part of the same world.

“You’re going to make the program look good through facilities, through social networking, through everything to all the recruits who have never been to West Virginia before.

“So everything we do will be focused on recruiting. When they walk into the facility for the first time for a visit or for camps, you want that highlight tape playing and the music on so there’s that swag, that vibe to it right away.”