University of Louisville football coach Steve Kragthorpe announced three additions to his coaching staff for the 2009 season late Monday night. The Cardinals added two assistants on the defensive side of the ball with more than 40 years combined experience coaching BCS level defenses and an offensive assistant with roots at Southern Miss.

Former University of Tennessee assistant coach Larry Slade and former Utah State head coach Brent Guy have joined the staff as defensive assistants, while former Southern Mississippi offensive coordinator Jay Johnson has joined the Cardinals as an offensive assistant.

Kragthorpe also announced that special teams coordinator Mark Nelson has resigned from his position to pursue other opportunities.

"I'm very excited to add the caliber of coaches like Larry Slade, Brent Guy and Jay Johnson to our staff," said Kragthorpe. "All three of these coaches have a tremendous amount of experience and will be great additions.

"Larry is one of the most-respected defensive back coaches in the nation. I worked with Larry at Texas A&M, and he is one of the best I've ever been around. I'm excited that he has decided to join our staff.

"Brent has a proven track record playing great defense wherever he has coached.... He had great success at Arizona State as a defensive coordinator and can add a lot of expertise to that side of the football.

"I've known Jay for a long time and he has an excellent offensive mind. His teams at Southern Miss were very successful and explosive, and we're fortunate to add Jay to our offensive staff."

Slade coached with Phil Fulmer at Tennessee for 10 seasons and is known for turning out some of the nation*s best secondary units. Last season, despite UT's 5-7 record, the Volunteers were ranked fourth in the country in pass defense and tied for the third in the country in total defense.

Slade has spent 36 years in the coaching profession, including five seasons at Texas A&M from 1994-98, two seasons (1992-93) at Maryland as the defensive coordinator and six seasons at Washington from 1986-91, which was highlighted by a national championship in '91.

Guy joins the Cardinals after spending four seasons as head coach at Utah State. Before that he was defensive coordinator at Arizona State for four years. In 2002, Guy's defense forced 40 turnovers, including 22 interceptions. Those totals ranked third and fourth in the country respectively. In addition, ASU recorded an incredible 123,tackles for loss, including 52 sacks that season. Before joining the ASU staff Guy was the defensive coordinator at Boise State for three years and a linebackers coach at Oklahoma State for six years.

Johnson spent last season as an administrative assistant with UofL after spending five years at Southern Mississippi, including three as the offensive coordinator.

He helped lead the Golden Eagles to five straight bowl appearances. They finished in the top 25 in rushing offense in 2006 and 2007. Before that Johnson was a quarterbacks coach at Kansas for three years.