When Scotty Walden was still a young coordinator at East Texas Baptist, he held a passing camp for high school quarterbacks.
Many young signal-callers from around the area wanted to learn the tools that suddenly made ETBU into an offensive juggernaut. More wanted to learn the secrets of the boisterous, blonde-haired 25-year-old wunderkind zooming through the ranks of Division III football.
One of those quarterbacks came with his head coach from Paris. Tim Billings had a long history in college football, but was at Paris North Lamar to have a chance to be closer to family. At most, he hoped to help his QB get some instruction. He didn’t realize that a chance encounter with Walden was about to change both of their lives.
“I didn’t know anything about him,” Billings said. “I only realized when I got there how young he was.”
After seeing Walden work with players, Billings was intrigued. He asked to watch some of ETBU’s offensive film. Walden didn’t know much about who this random coach from Paris was, but he obliged. A few hours later, Billings came out of the film room wide-eyed. He followed Walden around, almost shadowing him.
Billings knew it right then. He found a star.
“It’s kind of like when I see a quarterback – there’s some quarterbacks that can spin it, but some of them just have ‘It,’” Billings said. “If we could can it and sell it, that would be great. Sometimes you just know. He’s just got that ‘It.’”
When Billings joined Jay Hopson’s staff at Southern Miss, he couldn’t help but remember that dynamic young coach who seemed ready to take on college football. After one year, receivers coach John Wozniak left USM for Oklahoma State. Immediately, the table was laid.
“I was like, I’ve got a coach you need to interview,” Billings said. “I think he’s going to be special. I think he has a chance to be a superstar in this profession.”
Three years later, that 30-year-old Texan is now the youngest head coach in the FBS. Officially, he’s an interim coach tasked with holding a program together after Hopson’s resignation. Ask those who know him best and the message is clear: Walden is ready.
“I don’t know if it could be harder,” former ETBU coach Josh Eargle said. “But I don’t know if there’s any more of a right man for that job than Scotty Walden.”
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To get to East Texas Baptist University, hop on I-20 and keep driving until there’s almost nowhere left to go in Texas. Marshall sits 20 minutes west of the Louisiana border, hundreds of miles from big-time college football.
Scotty Walden’s path to Marshall was an astronomical rise. The Cleburne product spent time at NAIA Dordt University and D-III Hardin-Simmons. In search of playing time, he landed in Alpine, Texas at Sul Ross, deep in Big Bend.
After his playing career ended, Walden joined SRU’s staff as a graduate assistant. Just months in, he was handed the reins of the offense – at the ripe, young age of 23, younger than a number of the players on the team. Plenty on the Division III roster were three years older than him.
Walden was first introduced to spread tempo at Hardin-Simmons. At Sul Ross, the offense switched from spread pistol to spread tempo to even Power I-formation thanks to the roster transforming due to injuries. With that knowledge – plus a marathon brainstorm session drawing plays on scratch paper at the Sul Ross library – Walden created his first playbook.
“I ran every offense that you can possibly run and what I learned really quick is that the No. 1 thing you have to have is an identity,” Walden said. “You have to know who you are.”
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