Chad Scott on Neal Brown, Tony Franklin

Former Kentucky offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, now the offensive coordinator at California, has played a big role in Scott’s career. He not only recruited Scott at UK, but also helped Scott with the transfer process.

“Once I was cleared to leave here at Kentucky, he helped me and guided me in that option. He gave me my first coaching job when he hired me at Troy. He had hired me to work some of his summer camps to get experience coaching guys and after I was a GA at North Carolina he was the first one to give me a full-time job. He gave me an opportunity to come to college and then the opportunity to be a full-time coach,” Scott said.

“We are still very close. He is even influential now in my maturation as a coach. I talked to him quite frequently and we stay in contact. He has been huge in my career as player and coach. We are close for lot of reasons and I owe him a lot.”

Scott says he’s passionate about what he does, which is one thing Franklin told him would make him a successful recruiter.

“I do a great job building relationships with kids and I am a young coach so I can relate to what they are doing. Some of the kids coming up have a lot of struggles and lot of adversity they deal with, all things I have gone through as a player and coach from a GA sleeping in my car to having the success I have now,” Scott said. “I can relay those stories to kids and they can relate in their own way to what story they may have.

“Being able to share those kind of stories and similarities that you may have and them seeing what it might be like on the other side helps me build relationships with those guys. But you also have to be passionate about it, and I am.”

Neal Brown

Franklin hired Brown to coach receivers at Troy the year before he brought Scott to Troy to coaching running backs.

“When I first got to Troy, coach Franklin said you kind of need to watch Neal. He is well organized, he is passionate about what he does, he is anal about little things, he is detailed oriented even about little things,” Scott said. “He said, ‘You need to follow his lead and let him mold you because he knows what he is doing,’ and that’s what I did.

“So we bonded real well as coaches because everything he did, I took from him. The setup of recruiting areas, how you study film, how you analyze film, how you grade it. We just kind of hit it off. When he became the coordinator (at Troy when Franklin left for Auburn), we kept working with each other. I was very fortunate that he thought very highly of me.

“Outside of just knowing the coaching duties, I never knew he exactly how he felt about me as a coach until he had the opportunity to go to Texas Tech and took me with him. It was a huge honor for him to take me as a running back coach with him. I stayed there and I turned down coaching jobs to stay with him. I appreciate the loyalty that he has, and the respect he has for me as a coach. I think we work really well together.”

Scott said it is “easy to work” for Brown because he makes it clear what he expects.

“It’s easy to work for him because I try to stay one or two steps ahead of him in terms of things I know he wants from me and expects me to do. So in that regard, it’s easy to work for him because I know exactly what he expects,” Scott said.

He was hoping when Brown got the job at Kentucky that he would get to come, too.

“I was hoping that he wanted me here with him. I didn’t necessarily expect it, but I was hoping,” the UK running backs coach said. “We both played here together and I have been with him all that time. He knows me. I was hoping it would work out, and it did.”

Scott isn’t sure what his role will be on game day at UK, but at Texas Tech he was on the sideline with Brown.

“I was one of the guys that signalled (the plays) and also one of the guys that would control the substitution going in and out of the game with the skilled guys. I handle the adjustments of run game and running game things,” Scott said.

And what’s he like on the sideline?

“I am one of the rowdy guys, the excitable guy. It is fun. That is what you do. You put in all the time and all the work and all the hours of preparation during the week, but the game is fun,” Scott said. “Obviously there are times when it gets a little time consuming, but game day is fun. I am excited to see guys execute and make big plays. If they go out there and do it, I am excited. If they go out there and screw up, you will see another side of me. I am a rowdy guy.”