Glen Coffee recently tried making a comeback to the NFL after a nearly four-year stint in the Army.
At the time of his comeback, Coffee seemed like a decent free agent option for an NFL team looking for some productive and or interesting depth at the running back position. What we didn't know then was that Coffee was testing free agency in other areas of football as well, not just the NFL.
With that in mind, Charlie Potter of 247Sports is reporting that Coffee has indeed made it back into the world of football, but the NFL has nothing to do with his next stop. Potter is passing on that Coffee, a former star for the Alabama Crimson Tide, is back in Tuscaloosa. He's working on finishing up his degree, and he'll also serve on Nick Saban's staff as a student assistant. Per Potter, the Tuscaloosa News was first to report the news.
Coffee, now 30-years-old, was a running back for 'Bama from 2005-2008, making his most noise in 2008 when he rushed for 1,383 yards and 10 touchdowns. Overall, the former college running back racked up 2,107 total rushing yards and 16 touchdowns with the Tide, so he'll bring a ton of experience to the table for Saban as a student assistant. Generally, student assistants don't come with that much experience under their belts, and that's not even counting what he was able to accomplish and learn with the Army.
Current Alabama back Bo Scarbrough, for one, completely understands the value of having a plethora of talented backs that have played for the Tide in the past to lean on — whether that be official, as in Coffee's new role, or unofficially. Here's what he said, per Potter:
"By being a running back here you kind of get relationships with the past running backs because they come around often," Bo Scarbrough said. "... There's a lot I learned from them."
Coffee parlayed his awesome 2008 season into a third round draft selection in the 2009 NFL Draft. He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers and spent one year in the league before heading to Army Ranger school.
