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Always a coach on the field, former TCU Football safety Sam Carter was a natural to pursue a career in coaching once his playing days were over. His next stop will be Arkansas, where he has been hired to serve as the cornerbacks coach for Sam Pittman, under defensive coordinator Barry Odom — his former boss at Mizzou.
Former TCU player and Missouri analyst Sam Carter to be hired as Arkansas cornerback coach.: https://t.co/vR7p5qJW9B by /u/ LukeNeverShaves
— /r/razorbacks (@HogsReddit) December 18, 2019
On the first day of the early signing period, he was looking to shore up his unit.
If you are a 2020 DB and your not signing today send me your info ASAP. Need Game Changers Ark 2020 all gas lets go!!!!
— Sam Carter (@CoachCarterArk) December 18, 2019
A three year starter for the Frogs, he racked up 13 interceptions and 18 pass breakups. As a senior in 2014, he was a first-team All-Big 12 selection and a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation’s top defensive back. Upon graduating in 2014, Carter went undrafted but spent some time bouncing around the NFL trying to make it at safety. In 2016, he elected to hang up the pads and put on a whistle, joining the Missouri staff, first as a graduate assistant and later as a defensive quality control assistant and defensive backs assistant coach for Barry Odom. As a member of Mizzou’s staff, he helped the Tigers only allow 19.4 points per contest — good enough for sixth in the SEC — and just 179.3 passing yards per contest, the second-lowest total in the conference.
Carter was free to leave the Tigers with the firing of Barry Odom, who was hired as DC for the Hogs, and brought Sam along with him to coach the cornerbacks for Arkansas under new head coach Sam Pittman — the former offensive line coach at Georgia. That’s some SEC inbreeding, if you ask me.
Carter is the latest in a long line of former players under Gary Patterson to pursue coaching — Zarnell Fitch, Jeremy Modkins, Kenny Hill, and Michael Downing are all part of TCU’s current staff after spending their playing days in purple, and Joseph Turner helped lead North Side’s dramatic turnaround in his first year as the high school’s head football coach. Patterson has long encouraged his players and coaches to pursue coaching and helped them move up the ranks along the way. Seeing Carter take on a larger role at a Power Five program can only be seen as a positive.
Especially since that home and home series is already in the books.
Good luck Coach Carter!