Texas A&M-Commerce hired five new coaches on Thursday, all of them bringing a vast amount of high-level experience as the program transitions to the Southland Conference of the FCS.
The Lions have hired Tyron Carrier to coach their wide receivers. Carrier has coached wideouts at West Virginia and Houston previously, and in 2018 was selected by prior winners as the FootballScoop Wide Receivers Coach of the Year.
In the defensive backfield, Curtis Fuller has come aboard as safeties coach. Fuller comes from Myers Park High School in North Carolina, where he was the head coach, but brings a dozen years of experience as the assistant defensive backs coach for the Oakland Raiders, Green Bay Packers, Tennessee Titans, Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals. Fuller also spent four seasons playing in the NFL for the Seahawks, Packers and Panthers.
Jack Tyler will coach A&M-Commerce's linebackers after coaching the same spot for Virginia Tech last season, and Michael Smith will coach the defensive line after stints at Texas and New Mexico. He spent the past two seasons coaching the defensive front at Black Hills State (D-II - SD).
Finally, Hayden Meister has joined the staff as the director of football operations after spending 2021 in the same role at Wagner (FCS - NY). The Iowa graduate worked in Kirk Ferentz's operations program while in school.
Bringing aboard five coaches with Division I or NFL experience is a benefit of having a head coach with 14 years experience running his own programs at the Division I level.
"The five coaches add a vast amount of experience to the coaching staff," said head coach David Bailiff. "I am excited about the new energy and ideas they are going to bring. We still have huge expectations in this program and we took a step forward hiring the type of men that we did."
"We had great staff that moved onto other opportunities, but this staff is even better with the new additions."
The Lions are 18-7 in two seasons under Bailiff. The club went 11-3 with a Division II quarterfinal appearance in 2019, and posted a 7-4 mark last fall.
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