Bears Reportedly Hire Brian Johnson as New Head S&C Coach
Per footballscoop.com, the Bears have hired their replacement for former Head S&C coach Torre Becton with the addition of former LSU player and collegiate and NFL S&C coach Brian Johnson.
Johnson played offensive line under LSU head coaches Les Miles and Nick Saban before a three-year stint in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baltimore Ravens before taking an injury retirement.
It didn’t take long for the former Kinesiology, African American Studies and Communications student to find his way into strength coaching, beginning with working for Jimbo Fisher in his hometown base of Talahassee, Florida for Florida State as a strength and conditioning assistant in 2010. Two years later, he returned to his alma mater LSU in the same capacity to coach under Saban until the San Francisco 49ers nabbed him as a strength and conditioning assistant for two years, the last year under head coach Chip Kelly.
After Kelly’s firing, Williams moved over to Texas A&M for a year before head coach Kevin Sumlin took him with him to Arizona to take over their strength and conditioning program, where he also worked with Cal defensive backs coach Marcel Yates, who was a big advocate for his hiring at Cal.
With Sumlin’s dismissal after this season, Williams was set to joing Butch Jones’ staff at Arkansas State but the Bears reportedly lured him over before much time elapsed.
Johnson started 28 games at multiple line positions for LSU from 2003-‘06. Despite accumulating 148 knockdowns and 34 pancake blocks over his final two seasons, Johnson did not get drafted before spending his three seasons in the NFL.
His predecessor Becton had been with the Bears for the four years of head coach Justin Wilcox’s tenure at Cal before departing for a similar position at the University of Texas.
