Herman Jason "Jay" Graham (born July 14, 1975) is an American football coach and former running back who is formerly the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach at the University of Alabama.
| East Tennessee State Buccaneers | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Special teams coordinator & tight ends coach | ||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Born: | July 14, 1975 Concord, North Carolina, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Height: | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | ||||||||||||
| Weight: | 215 lb (98 kg) | ||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||
| High school: | Concord (NC) | ||||||||||||
| College: | Tennessee | ||||||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1997 / round: 3 / pick: 64 | ||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||
| As a player: | |||||||||||||
| As a coach: | |||||||||||||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||
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Playing career
editPlaying for Concord High School from 1990–92, Graham was a nationally recruited running back who broke school records in single-season and career rushing in his two and one half seasons with the Spiders. Named All-State and All-American, Graham signed a football scholarship with the University of Tennessee in 1992.
Graham rushed for 2,609 yards in his career (1993–96), ranking sixth on the Vols all-time rushing list. He is second on the all-time carries list with 540 and he scored 25 touchdowns in his four-year career as a Volunteer. Graham had season best totals in 1995 when he rushed for 1,438 yards on 272 carries putting him second in both categories in Vols school history. He tallied a career-best 211 yards against Vanderbilt. He also holds the single-season record for the most 100-yard rushing games with 10.
Graham was selected in the third round of the 1997 NFL draft.[1] During his professional career he played for the Baltimore Ravens 1997-99, the Seattle Seahawks in 2001, and the Green Bay Packers for the 2002 season. He also played in the Canadian Football League (CFL)'s Montreal Alouettes during the 2003 season.
Coaching career
editGraham returned to his alma mater for the 2005 season as a Graduate Assistant before moving on to the UT-Chattanooga where he spent the 2006 season as their Running Backs coach. He moved again the next off season, this time to UT-Martin where he was the RB coach and Recruiting Coordinator. He changed locations again prior to the 2008 season when he became the RB coach for the Miami RedHawks. For the 2009 season he accepted a position with the South Carolina Gamecocks as the RB coach. After three seasons at South Carolina, he was named the new RB coach for the Volunteers, again returning to his alma mater. In February 2013, he left Tennessee to accept a similar position with the Florida State Seminoles.[2][3] After the 2019 season he joined head coach Jeremy Pruitt and became the running backs coach at University of Tennessee.
Graham was hired as the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach at Alabama in 2021.[4]
On March 24, 2021, Graham resigned and left Alabama after only two months with the program [5]
Following his resignation at Alabama, Graham was hired as special teams and offensive line quality control coach at East Tennessee State in 2021.[6] He rejoined East Tennessee State in 2024.[7]
References
edit- ^ "1997 NFL Draft Listing". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ^ Woodberry, Evan (March 27, 2013). "BRIEF: Former UT running backs coach Jay Graham will make $275,000 at Florida State". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
- ^ "Jay Graham". Florida State Official Site. Archived from the original on May 11, 2013.
- ^ Zenitz, Matt (January 28, 2021). "Alabama set to fill remaining assistant coach opening". AL.com. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
- ^ "Alabama assistant Jay Graham no longer part of Nick Saban's football coaching staff".
- ^ "VFL, former NFL'er Jay Graham making impact on Bucs coaching staff". September 8, 2021.
- ^ "Jay Graham - Special Teams Coordinator / Tight Ends - Football Coaches". East Tennessee State University. Retrieved April 5, 2024.