West Virginia’s Chad Scott, Georgia Tech’s Norval McKenzie, and Nebraska’s EJ Barthel are all in the mix, according to Orangebloods.
Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian is working to hire an assistant to replace running backs coach Tashard Choice, who departed to the Detroit Lions last week, with West Virginia Mountaineers running backs coach Chad Scott a “leading candidate,” according to a Wednesday report from Matt Zenitz of 247Sports.
Two other coaches are also receiving consideration from Sarkisian, according to Anwar Richardson of Orangebloods — Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets running backs coach Norval McKenzie and Nebraska Cornhuskers running backs coach EJ Barthel.
But Inside Texas and On Texas Football are reporting on Wednesday evening that the Horns are expected to hire Scott.
A Florida native, Scott played at Kentucky and North Carolina before stints in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers. After his playing career ended, Scott returned to Chapel Hill to serve as a graduate assistant video analyst before taking over as the running backs coach at Troy. Scott also had stints at Texas Tech and Kentucky before coaching the tight ends at North Carolina for four years. In 2019, Scott was hired as the co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach at West Virginia, where he spent two seasons calling plays for Neal Brown in 2023 and 2024. When Brown was fired and Rich Rodriguez returned to Morgantown, he retained Scott on his staff.
From the Atlanta area, McKenzie played running back at Vanderbilt, where he served as a graduate assistant after spending three years as a high school assistant. McKenzie has stops at Furman, Arkansas State, Louisville, and Vanderbilt again before joining the Georgia Tech staff in 2023.
Barthel is a New Jersey native who played running back at Rutgers and UMass, starting his coaching career on the support staff of the Scarlet Knights. After joining the support staff at Temple, Barthel spent a year as the recruiting coordinator at Penn State, a year as the running backs coach at Howard, and a year as the running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at William & Mary before rejoining Matt Rhule as a coaching assistant for the Carolina Panthers. In 2022, Barthel was at UConn, then joined Rhule’s staff at Nebraska in 2023.