Tulane Coach Willie Fritz Finalizes Football Coaching Staff
Mar 13, 2016 | Football
NEW ORLEANS - On the eve of his first spring football campaign at Tulane, head football coach Willie Fritz announced today the completion of the Green Wave coaching staff.
The newest staff members include a pair of Louisiana natives in Slade Nagle and Jamaal Fobbs and Fritz reunites with Jeff Conway, as well as Chris Hampton, Derrick Sherman and Chris Couch.
Nagle will coach the tight ends, Fobbs will be the running backs coach, Conway will oversee the wide receivers, Hampton will coach defensive backs while Sherman will serve as an offensive assistant and Couch will be a special teams assistant.
Prior to Tulane, Nagle served as the running backs coach and special teams coordinator for the past four seasons at his alma mater, McNeese State, and helped the team to a combined record of 33-13, including a pair of 10-win seasons and two Football Championships Subdivision (FCS) playoff appearances.
During Nagle's final season at McNeese State, the Cowboys posted a 10-1 overall record, a perfect 9-0 mark en route to a Southland Conference title and fell to Sam Houston State in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
A New Orleans native and graduate of St. Augustine High School, Fobbs comes to Tulane from Liberty University, where he served as the running backs coach and special teams coach for the last four seasons.
At Liberty, Fobbs worked under Turner Gill and helped lead the Flames to 29-19 overall record, a Big South Conference regular season title in 2012 and a pair of co-championship finishes in 2013 and 2014 and to the second round of the FCS playoffs.
Fritz and Conway have a storied history together that dates back to 1984 when both were in their first stints at Sam Houston State. Since then, the two have worked together at Blinn Junior College, Central Missouri, a second time at Sam Houston State and will reunite at Tulane for the fifth time over the last 31 years.
Prior to Tulane, Conway, who has been a part of five bowl games and five conference champions during his career, spent the last four seasons as the co-offensive coordinator, running backs and tight ends coach at Texas State under head coach Dennis Franchione.
Hampton spent the previous four years as the defensive backs coach at McNeese State.
Hampton began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Arkansas State in 2008 and followed that up with two seasons as a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech (2009-10). He then spent one season as the safeties coach at Central Arkansas (2011) before joining the McNeese State staff.
Sherman comes to Tulane from Pittsburg State, where he coached the receiving corps. Prior to Pittsburg State, Sherman was on Fritz's staff at Georgia Southern University where he served as an offensive graduate assistant coach in 2014.
Prior to his time at Georgia Southern, Sherman served as wide receivers coach at Southwest Baptist University in 2012 and West Virginia State University in 2013.
Couch spent the 2015 campaign at Point University where he was the special teams coordinator and also coached the linebackers. Before that, he worked at Missouri Southern and as the defensive quality control coach at Georgia Southern.
At Georgia Southern, Couch worked with the linebackers, as well as breaking down film and helping with the scout team. He was part of a staff that took a team that went 5-6 and turned them around to a 10-5 mark and the school's first playoff appearance since 2005.
