Longtime Alabama strength coach Scott Cochran heading to Georgia to be an assistant coach
One of Nick Saban’s longest-serving staff members at Alabama is heading to Georgia.
Georgia announced Monday afternoon that former Crimson Tide head strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran is now the Bulldogs’ special teams coordinator. Cochran has been at Alabama since Saban arrived in 2007 and is widely credited with helping develop many of Alabama’s blue-chip recruits into fantastic college players and NFL prospects.
“We appreciate Scott’s contribution to our organization over the last 13 years,” Saban said in an Alabama statement. “We can’t thank him enough for his service and dedication to our program, and his commitment to our players. He is taking his career in a new direction, and we wish Scott, [wife] Cissy and the kids the best. As we do with every position that opens here, we will go out and hire the best person to lead our strength and conditioning program and help our players maximize the resources available in our new sports science facility.”
Cochran, of course, worked with Georgia coach Kirby Smart while the two were at Alabama. Smart was a defensive assistant for Alabama from 2007-15 before he was hired as Georgia’s head coach.
Smart tried to get Cochran to go to Athens with him after the 2015 season. But Cochran decided to stay at Alabama.
Cochran has never served as an assistant directly coaching football. Before coming to Alabama in the strength and conditioning department, he was an assistant strength coach for the then-New Orleans Hornets. Before working in the NBA for three seasons, Cochran was part of LSU’s strength staff while Saban was with the Tigers.
"Ask anyone who's been around him, Scott's passion and energy is contagious," Smart said in a statement. “Special teams coordinator is a great fit as he'll be working with all position groups. His knowledge and experience elevates our entire program, and we're excited to welcome the Cochran family to Athens."
Cochran was one of the highest-paid strength coaches in the country at Alabama. The school approved a three-year contract extension for him in 2019 that gave him an annual salary of nearly $600,000 a season. Cochran was making $420,000 a year in Smart’s last year with the Crimson Tide and got a raise to more than $500,000 a year after he stayed in Tuscaloosa when Smart went to Georgia.
In addition to his work with Alabama’s players in the weight room, Cochran has become known to even some casual college football fans because of his excitable demeanor.
Cochran even (in)famously destroyed Alabama’s runner-up trophy after the Crimson Tide lost to Clemson for the national title following the 2016 season.
“It’s amazing how quickly y’all found out about and how much trouble I got in,” Cochran said via the Courier-Journal in early 2018 about the trophy smash. “… I think one of the players told me, ‘Why do you still have that?’ and I’m like, ‘That’s a great question.’ I took it, had to go do it.”
If Georgia wants to keep its runner-up trophy from the 2017 postseason intact, it should probably keep it away from Cochran. Though it’s fair to say that Smart’s move to get the longtime Alabama staffer is one to make sure that Georgia is hoisting the championship trophy sooner rather than later.
We’ll see if it pays off. And if Cochran’s absence will have any effect at all on the juggernaut Saban has built at Alabama.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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