The Wisconsin football program has named Gary Brown its new running backs coach, replacing John Settle, who left for Kentucky earlier this month.
Brown held the same position with the Dallas Cowboys from 2013-19 before taking last year off while battling cancer.
“Gary is really an impressive person. Everyone I know that has worked with Gary speaks very highly of him and has loved working with him,” UW coach Paul Chryst said in a statement. “I look forward to our staff being able to work with him, and I’m really excited that our players will get to learn from him. He brings great experience at both the collegiate and professional level and is a heck of a good football coach.”
Brown mentored some of the game’s best backs during his run in Dallas, with DeMarco Murray (2014) and Ezekiel Elliott (as a rookie in 2016 and again in 2018) each claiming NFL rushing titles under his direction and Darren McFadden also posting a 1,000-yard season. The Cowboys averaged at least 4.5 yards per carry in each of Brown’s seven seasons in Dallas.
Brown also spent time coaching running backs in Cleveland (4 years). He spent time with the Green Bay Packers (2006) as part of the NFL’s Minority Coaching Fellowship program.
Brown played collegiately at Penn State and led the Nittany Lions in rushing as a sophomore in 1988.
Brown went on to an eight-year pro career that included a breakout season in 1993 when he rushed for 1,002 yards and six touchdowns in just eight games with Houston (drafted in 1991 by the Oilers). After playing one season with the San Diego Chargers in 1997, he put together another 1,000-yard season with the New York Giants in 1998, running for 1,063 yards, before retiring following the 1999 season.