Oklahoma Sooners Hire Jay Boulware as Tight Ends Coach
Oklahoma Sooners football coach Bob Stoops added the third piece of his new coaching puzzle when he announced on March 1 that Jay Boulware will be the new tight ends coach. Stoops also said that Boulware will have special teams duties that he will define at a later date. Boulware comes from the Auburn Tigers, where he was the tight ends coach and special teams coordinator.
Boulware joins Jerry Montgomery (defensive line coach) and Bill Bedenbaugh (offensive line coach) as the new coaches on the staff.
"“Jay owns an impressive track record as both a coach and recruiter,” Stoops said. “He possesses a wide range of coaching experience, competing in some of the nation’s toughest conferences. He also has strong ties in the state of Texas, as well as recruiting relationships across the country that will serve us well at the University of Oklahoma. We enthusiastically welcome Jay back to his roots in the Big 12.”"
Jay Boulware is an Oklahoma native, born in Oklahoma City, but played college football for the Texas Longhorns. His playing career came to a premature end when he was diagnosed in 1993 with cardiac arrhythmia, a heart condition. He stayed on at Texas until 1996 as a student and graduate assistant before moving on to Northern Illinois for his first coaching role.
He went to Arizona Wildcats in 2002 as the running backs coach and also took on the role of special teams coordinator in 2003. He left the same year that Mike Stoops took over as head coach in Arizona, and Boulware moved on to the Stanford Cardinal, where he coached running backs for one season. From there, he spent two years at Utah, two seasons with Iowa State and then the last three years at Auburn.
While his primary role is that of tight ends coach, his best accolades have been in the special teams game. He was part of the 2010 National Championship Auburn Tigers team, where his special teams ranked first in the SEC and ninth in the nation for punt coverage and 16th in the nation in kick return coverage. Even more impressive was 2012, when his punt unit gave up a total of four yards the entire season on 70 punts.
Jay Boulware now joins the Oklahoma Sooners football team, as what Bob Stoops has to hope is the last key to the puzzle for 2013.