Tag: safeties coach

Wisconsin football hires new safeties coach

Wisconsin football hires new safeties coach

Wisconsin football promoted assistant defensive backs coach Jack Cooper to its full-time safeties coach on Monday.

The Badgers had a vacancy after former safeties coach Alex Grinch took the defensive coordinator job at UCF. Cooper will be Luke Fickell’s third safeties coach in as many seasons. Colin Hitschler held the position in 2023 before leaving for a similar role at Alabama.

The rising young assistant joined the Badgers in 2023 as a senior defensive analyst. He was promoted to assistant defensive backs coach entering the 2024 campaign.

Before his time at Wisconsin, Cooper was the defensive coordinator at Rhode Island (Football Championship Subdivision) from 2020-22. He made that jump after two years as a quality control coach at Nebraska (2018-19) and two as a graduate assistant at UCF (2016-17).

Wisconsin returns senior Preston Zachman to lead the safety group in 2025. It also added several promising transfers in Matthew Traynor (Richmond, FCS) and Matt Jung (Bethel, D-III). Both players dominated at lower levels — Traynor as a redshirt freshman and Jung as a multi-year starter. The two bring immense potential to a room with significant snaps up for grabs.

Cooper, Zachman and the rest of the unit will be tasked with replicating the room’s 2024 production with star Hunter Wohler at the helm.

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Raiders hire Gerald Alexander as new safeties coach

Raiders hire Gerald Alexander as new safeties coach

We’ve seen two new additions to the Raiders defensive staff in a matter of hours. Both coaching defensive backs and both former NFL players.

Gerald Alexander has joined the Raiders as safeties coach. The former Steelers and Dolphins DB coach made it official by changing his twitter bio to ‘Safeties coach II Las Vegas Raiders’ and tweeted this out:

A Los Angeles native, just like Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce, Alexander was drafted in the second round out of Boise State in 2007. He would play for five different teams over five seasons.

After his playing days were over, he entered the coaching arena. He had one year stints as a DB coach and Indiana State and Montana State before spending three years as a DB coach at Cal.

From there he entered the NFL coaching ranks. He spent two years as DB coach in Miami, then the past two seasons in the same position in Pittsburgh.

Blake Gideon to return to Texas as part of Sarkisian’s staff

According to FootballScoop, former UT player Blake Gideon is expected to join the staff at Texas. He will coach special teams and safeties.

Steve Sarkisian’s coaching staff is beginning to take shape just three days after he was hired.

According to FootballScoop, former Longhorns player Blake Gideon is expected to join the staff at Texas. Bruce Feldman of The Athletic and Fox Sports is also reporting that Gideon is “likely” to work with safeties and special teams in Austin.

Since leaving Texas in 2011 and the NFL in 2013, Gideon has been involved with four SEC schools. His highest position came in 2015 with Auburn when he was promoted from a graduate assistant role to coaching defensive backs.

Gideon was praised for his work at Houston in 2019 as the special team’s coach and was hired by Lane Kiffin when he accepted the job at Ole Miss. He will be leaving the Rebels to come back to his alma mater.

Western Carolina (2016-2018) and Georgia State (2018) are two other schools Gideon has been a defensive backs coach. Playing safety during his time at Texas, he will be coaching the position he starred in.

This is the first hiring move Sarkisian has made on the defensive side of the ball. There have been multiple names involved as to who could be the defensive coordinator, including Chris Ash, Will Muschamp, and Barry Odom.

More outside names will be considered for Sarkisian’s offensive staff. Mike Yurcich announced he would be leaving on Monday afternoon. Running back’s coach Stan Drayton is the only offensive coach expected to be retained.

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