McFarland Announces Hirings
1/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Jan. 15, 2005
NACOGDOCHES, Texas-- Stephen F. Austin Lumberjack head football coach Robert McFarland announced today the addition of four assistant football coaches to his staff. The four newcomers will join J.C. Harper and Robert Walker to complete McFarland's staff for 2005.
Gerald Broussard comes to SFA after spending the past four seasons as the offensive line coach at McNeese State. Broussard, a 1984 graduate of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, also served as the recruiting coordinator at McNeese State the past four years. Broussard coached All-Americans at McNeese in two of the last four years. He has also made coaching stops at Tennessee-Martin, Scottsdale Community College and UL-Lafayette.
During his playing career at UL-Lafayette, Broussard was a three year starter and was named to the First Team All-25 Year Team at UL-Lafayette. Broussard will coach offensive line for the Lumberjacks.
Jay Rodgers, a 2000 graduate of Indiana University, also joins the Lumberjack staff as the quarterbacks coach. Rodgers spent last season as the quarterbacks coach at Southwest Missouri State. He has also served as a graduate assistant at LSU in 2001 and 2002 and was at Ohio State in 2000. Rodgers played one season at Southwest Missouri State after transferring from Indiana and set an SMS record with eight 200-yard passing games. He completed just over 63 percent of his passes for 2,741 yards and a school record 24 touchdowns during his season with the Bears.
On the defensive side of the ball, Matt Graves joins the SFA football program to coach defensive backs. Graves, a 2001 graduate of the University of Arkansas, spent the past two years at East Carolina University coaching the secondary. He also spent four seasons assisting the football program at Arkansas, helping the Razorbacks to four bowl appearances and an SEC Western Division championship in 2002.
A native of Texarkana, Graves is a noted recruiter and will inherit a secondary that returns three starters from a year ago.
The fourth member of the staff is a name familiar to fans of Lumberjack football. Arlington Nunn, who spent five seasons with the Lumberjacks from 1996-2000, returns to join McFarland's staff and coach linebackers. Nunn spent the past season as the running backs coach at Ole Miss for coach David Cutcliffe and spent the three years before that as the receivers coach at Troy State.
During his five years at SFA, Nunn coached linebackers and the secondary tutoring nine all-conference players. Included among that group was two-time All-America selection Jeremiah Trotter.
A native of Clearwater, Fla., Nunn played four years at Clemson University for coaches Danny Ford and Ken Hatfield. The Tigers posted four straight 10-2 seasons and played in four straight bowl games during Nunn's career.
Nunn has also made assistant coaching stops at Sam Houston, Baylor and Navarro Junior College.
Spring practice is set to begin March 21 at the university. TM
