Marshall Faulk announced as the new head coach of the Southern Jaguars

Marshall Faulk did not tiptoe into college coaching at Southern University; he cut back and hit the hole like it was third-and-five in January. The Hall of Fame running back, fresh off a stint tutoring backs at Colorado under Deion Sanders, is now the head coach of Southern, trading his gold jacket for a headset and a whistle.

As a player, Faulk was a nightmare for defenses and a dream for offensive coordinators, piling up 12,279 rushing yards and 100 rushing touchdowns in the NFL, while adding elite production as a receiver out of the backfield. He was the engine of the Greatest Show on Turf with the St Louis Rams, winning league MVP in 2000 and earning three NFL Offensive Player of the Year awards, the kind of résumé that makes even seasoned pros sit up straight in a meeting room. Before that, he shredded college defenses at San Diego State, finishing as a Heisman Trophy runner-up and leading the nation in rushing and touchdowns, proving early that he understood offense like a chess grandmaster who also runs a 4.3.

His coaching journey has been shorter than his highlight reel as a player, but it has come under the guidance of serious mentors, most recently as Colorado’s running backs coach in 2025 under Deion Sanders, where he worked in a modern pass-spread system and helped manage a high-profile locker room. That year, the Buffaloes staff gave him hands-on experience with recruiting, player development, and the week-to-week grind of game planning, the unglamorous side of football that separates television analysts from actual coaches. Southern is his first head job, but he arrives with the advantage of having already lived inside one of the most scrutinized programs in college football.

Faulk is a good fit at Southern for reasons that go beyond star power, starting with geography and culture. He is a New Orleans native taking over a proud HBCU program in Baton Rouge, close enough to home that every high school coach in Louisiana already knows his name. He brings instant credibility in living rooms, able to look a recruit in the eye and say he knows exactly how to get from Friday night lights to Sunday afternoons with his background as a complete back, running, and catching, he is expected to modernize Southern’s offense, making it more flexible and explosive, the kind of system that can turn a lightly recruited kid into a draft pick.

Expectations are high and unfair. Fans see the MVP trophies and the Hall of Fame and assume the playbook will come down from the sky engraved on stone tablets. Faulk will still have to prove he can manage staff, call timeouts at the right moments, and survive the joys of alums who believe they went undefeated in the 90s, even when the record says otherwise. But if he brings to Southern even a fraction of the vision and discipline that made him the prototype modern running back, the Jaguars might soon be doing something they have not done much of lately, laughing and winning on Saturday nights, often at the same time.

This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Marshall Faulk announced as the new head coach of the Southern Jags