Getting to know Chad Scott

Neal Brown’s coming home and he’s bringing two former Cats with him: Texas Tech running backs coach Chad Scott and Troy’s John Schlarman. Let’s get to know Scott, the man who will soon be in charge of Kentucky’s running backs.

CHAD SCOTT

Birthdate: June 11, 1981

Hometown: Plant City, Florida

Family: wife, Shambrica; daughter, Kori Cherrell

College: Kentucky, 2000-2001; North Carolina, 2003-2004

Coaching history:

2006 – 2007: North Carolina (Graduate Assistant)
2007 – 2009: Troy (Running Backs Coach)
2010 – 2012: Texas Tech (Running Backs Coach)

Kentucky ties:

Scott played for the Cats in 2000 and 2001 under Hal Mumme and Guy Morris and was recruited by Tony Franklin. As a freshman, he started seven games, led the Cats in rushing with 611 yards, and was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team. An ankle injury sidelined him as a sophomore, and he transferred to UNC, where he came into his own his senior year, leading the team in rushing with 796 yards for a 5.57 per carry average. Scott had a brief stint in the NFL, playing for the Cleveland Browns, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants before retiring to become a graduate assistant at UNC.

Why he got the job:

After Hal Mumme’s staff left Kentucky, Tony Franklin kept in touch with Scott and told him that if he ever got the chance, he would hire him on one of his coaching staffs. In 2007, Franklin did just that, bringing Scott on board at Troy, where he joined fellow former Cats Neal Brown and John Schlarman. Brown and Scott formed a close working relationship that would lead to Scott joining Brown at Texas Tech in 2010.

At Texas Tech, Scott revamped the running back corps, taking them from a unit that average 84 yards a game in 2009 to 141.3 yards a game in 2010. In 2011, his unit was plagued by injuries, but still amassed 1,516 rushing yards. This past season, Texas Tech ranked 12th in the nation in total offense (2nd in pass, 86th in rush) behind star QB Seth Doege, with Scott’s unit racking up 1,674 yards on the ground despite some of its stars sitting out due to injury.

In his own words:

On recruiting:

“I’m relentless. You’ve got to be relentless. You’ve got to attack all ends of it. You’ve got to get familiar with the coaches of the players you’re recruiting, the people that are close to the players you’re recruiting, involved with the parents, the girlfriends. If a kid doesn’t tell me no he’s extremely not interested, even if he’s being recruited by the big boys, I’m going to be in on him till the end. Some of the players we got at Signing Day were some of those kids that in the beginning, it didn’t look like we had a shot. We were there for that kid because we had been recruiting them the whole way.”

Also of note: Scott and Brown have a commitment from 2014 star D.J. Gillins, the top dual-threat quarterback in the nation according to 247Sports.

Twitter profile: @CoachChadScott

Scott doesn’t seem to be that big of a Tweeter yet, but shows promise. And like any good American, he knows the value of some smothered and covered hashbrown goodness:

@josh_martin88 @laurynt11 you’re not American if you don’t eat at the Waffle House!

— Chad Scott (@CoachChadScott) November 27, 2012

Welcome home, Chad.