Chris Hurd doesn’t lack for passion.
It oozes out of the new University of Tennessee at Chattanooga tight ends and special teams coach when he speaks. When he first saw Tom Arth speak, he saw a person who matched his passion for football.
New UTC head football coach Tom Arth addresses the team at the start of practice Saturday at Scrappy Moore Field.
So when given the opportunity to join Arth’s staff, it was a no-brainer decision.
Hurd was linked to Arth through Brandon Staley, who was briefly the Mocs’ defensive coordinator before taking a position with the Chicago Bears. The two had worked together in 2012 at Tennessee when Hurd was a strength and conditioning intern and Staley was a defensive graduate assistant.
“I saw Coach Arth’s (UTC introductory) press conference, and I got fired up,” Hurd said recently. “You can’t work and play this game, you can’t be a player or coach for somebody you don’t believe, or who doesn’t have a passion you share for this game, because this game is a very great game. It’s been very good to me, and very good to a lot of players and coaches.
“It’s why we put in the hours we do and why players put in the work that they do, because they love it. They enjoy it, the lessons they get out of it, and you see all that in the press conference, how he talked. He comes off as very easygoing, but when he starts talking, when he gets to his point, Coach Arth is a man of conviction. What he wants the program to be about, the standard of excellence he’s looking for, the type of people – whether it’s coaches, the players, the support staff – everybody he wants in his program to be about.”
Hurd said he watched the news conference on his phone in his car and immediately called his wife Emily to see if she had watched it as well.
“I was jacked up,” he said. “I’m an emotional guy. I’m loud, and people think I’m yelling at them once I get going, but it’s just the way I am, but I like people with passion. That’s what you can see – his passion, how he wants to win. It’s not just about football, though. He’s creating men of value.”
Hurd played collegiately at North Texas, where he went from a walk-on linebacker to Sun Belt Conference defensive player of the year in 2003. He came to the Mocs from Florida Atlantic, where he served the past three seasons in the same role. During practices, he preaches to the team about having “violent hands” at the point of attack.
The units he’s inheriting couldn’t be more different. As a whole, the tight end position could return the most experience on the roster, as both Malcolm Colvin and Bailey Lenoir return with starting experience. They both had solid moments in the first week of practice, as did redshirt freshman Jack Keebler, whom the previous coaching staff thought highly of as he came out out of Boyd-Buchanan in 2016.
The special teams group lost three-year starting kicker Henrique Ribeiro, as well as primary punt returner C.J. Board and Xavier Borishade, one of the team’s kickoff returners.
Colin Brewer returns as the team’s punter, and the Mocs brought in kicker Jacob Bailey from Mount Juliet to compete with redshirt freshman Victor Ulmo for kicking duties.
Both of his units at FAU experienced success in Hurd’s three seasons at the school. He believes similar results are on the horizon at UTC this season, as does Arth.
“I’m glad he’s here because he’s incredible,” Arth said. “He’s one of the most passionate, one of the most dedicated, hardest-working, detailed coaches I’ve been around. I think he’s really rare in that sense.
“What he’s bringing to our tight end position, to our special teams units, I think is really special, and we’re just fortunate to have him on our staff. I’m fortunate to be able to learn from him every day, and I couldn’t be happier with the job he’s doing.”
The Mocs will practice at 8 tonight.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.