Ole Miss hires North Carolina’s Tray Scott as defensive line coach, per report

Ole Miss has a new defensive line coach. Tray Scott, the D-line coach for the North Carolina Tar Heels, will be leaving Chapel Hill to take over the same position in Oxford, FootballScoop has reported. Scott, who has spent the last two years at Carolina, returns to Oxford, where he spent the 2012 season as a defensive graduate assistant under Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze. The Rebel defensive line coach job opened up earlier this month when Chris Kiffin left the position to join his brother at FAU as the defensive coordinator.

An alumnus of and former letter winner at Arkansas Tech, Scott began his coaching career as an Arkansas Tech graduate assistant before working under Freeze in the role at both Arkansas State and Ole Miss. After his year in Oxford, Scott took the DL job at UT Martin, where his group had a breakout 2013 season that saw them tally 28 sacks and 36 quarterback hurries and earn All-OVC first team honors for defensive end DJ Roberts. Scott joined the Tar Heel staff in 2015, where he has been responsible for, among other things, the development of defensive end Nazair Jones from a lightly recruited, three-star athlete to an All-ACC award winner.

During Scott’s first year at UNC, the Tar Heel defense had a breakout year, leading the ACC in interceptions, turnover margin, and passes broken up. While at North Carolina, Scott’s defensive line had a havoc rate of 4.8 percent, which is good enough for 64th in the nation.

At Ole Miss, his high energy, technician approach to coaching will serve well a Rebel defense reliant on the development of young talents like Josiah Coatney, Benito Jones, Garrald McDowell, Austrian Robinson, Qaadir Sheppard and Charles Wiley. His prior experiences in Oxford and with Freeze should lend well to his ability to recruit to Ole Miss.