Alabama’s famous strength and conditioning coach, Scott Cochran, is ending his 13-year tenure at UA.
TideSports.com’s Cecil Hurt first reported Cochran is rejoining former UA defensive coordinator and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart to take an on-field role with the Bulldogs. Georgia confirmed the news at 5:15 p.m. to announce Cochran as its special teams coordinator. Cochran was reportedly courted on the same grounds at Ole Miss by another former UA assistant, Lane Kiffin.
“We appreciate Scott’s contribution to our organization over the last 13 years,” UA coach Nick Saban said in a 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, 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.”
The move shakes up what had been a relatively stable offseason in the context of typically tumultuous offseason for the UA coaching staff in recent years. The only on-field change to date has been replacing defensive line coach Brian Baker with former UA standout Freddie Roach.
Coach Coch is the glue and major key to Bama’s success. Replacing him will be interesting but I’m happy for him and he gets to coach on field 👀🔥
— Josh Jacobs (@iAM_JoshJacobs) February 24, 2020
Cochran reached fame relative to his position for his high-energy antics and weight room mantras, such as smashing a runner-up trophy. He has been received a great deal of credit for the success UA has had under Saban, for both physical development of players and the reinforcement of the program’s culture.
Cochran and Smart grew to be close off-field friends when they were on UA’s staff together, to the point that Smart attempted to lure Cochran with him when Smart got the head job at Georgia.
As UA goes about replacing Cochran, it has multiple in-house candidates. The following are listed on UA’s staff directory as Assistant Head Strength and Conditioning coaches with football in their titles: Terry Jones, Kindal Moorehead, Josh Chapman, Tyler Owens and Aaron Brosz. Chapman played for Saban from 2008-2011, Jones played for UA in the 1970s and played for UA before being taken in the fifth round of the 2003 NFL Draft. Owens was on the 2011-2014 teams.
