BATON ROUGE — Gary Crowton, who has served as head coach at Louisiana Tech and BYU and is considered one of the top offensive minds in all of football, has been named the offensive coordinator at LSU, head coach Les Miles announced on Wednesday.
Crowton comes to LSU after serving as the offensive coordinator at Oregon for the past two years. During his two years with the Ducks, Crowton overhauled the Oregon offense into one that was ranked among the best in the nation.
In 2006, Oregon ranked No. 9 in the nation in total offense, averaging 422.8 yards per game, which included 241 through the air and 182 on the ground. Oregon led the Pac-10 in both total offense and rushing in 2006. The Ducks posted a 7-6 mark this past season.
In his first year with Oregon in 2005, Crowton produced an offense that tallied that second-highest totals in school history in passing yards (304.5 per game) and points (34.5 per game). The Ducks ranked No. 8 in the nation in passing, No. 12 in scoring and No. 18 in total offense on their way to posting a 10-2 overall mark and reaching the Holiday Bowl.
Crowton joined Oregon after a four-year stint as head coach at Brigham Young from 2001-2004. During is four seasons at his Alma Mater, Crowton guided the Cougars to a 26-23 record. Crowton’s best year with BYU came in 2001 when he led the Cougars to a 12-2 overall mark, capped with an appearance in the Liberty Bowl. Crowton’s BYU offense scored 40 or more points 10 times that year, including 70 points in a win over Tulane and 44 in a victory over California.
BYU led the nation in total offense (542.9 per game) and scoring (46.8 per game) in 2001 as the Cougars captured the Mountain West Conference title. Crowton was named the MWC Coach of the Year for his efforts in his first season at BYU.
Prior to taking the head coaching job at BYU, Crowton served as the offensive coordinator for two years with the Chicago Bears. In his first year with the Bears in 1999, Crowton’s offense ranked No. 3 in the NFL in passing with an average of 258.5 yards per game. That year, the Bears established a franchise record with 4,136 passing yards behind a trio of quarterbacks.
In 2000, Crowton’s offense produced 1,000-yard rusher James Allen and also featured former LSU standout Eddie Kennison, who caught 55 passes for 549 yards and two scores for the Bears.
Crowton joined the Bears after a four-year stretch at Louisiana Tech, three of which were as head coach of the Bulldogs. Crowton served as head coach at Louisiana Tech from 1996-98, leading the Bulldogs to an overall mark of 21-13, which included a 9-2 record in 1997.
Crowton’s 1998 Louisiana Tech team proved to be one of the most potent offenses in the nation that year as the Bulldogs ranked No. 1 in the nation in passing yards with a 432.1 average behind All-America quarterback Tim Rattay. Tech finished the year ranked No. 2 in the nation in total offense, averaging 542 yards per game.
The 1998 Bulldog offense also featured future first round draft pick in wide receiver Troy Edwards. Rattay and Edwards teamed up for what was one of the most explosive offensive displays against a nationally-ranked team to open the 1998 season. In that game, Rattay threw for 590 yards, while Edwards caught 21 passes for an NCAA record 405 yards against fourth-ranked Nebraska.
In 1997, a year that saw Crowton lead the Bulldogs to wins over California and Alabama, Louisiana Tech ranked No. 3 in the nation in passing (360.5 per game) and total offense (496.0 per game).
Crowton began his 24-year coaching career as a student assistant under LaVell Edwards in 1982 at BYU, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1983. He proceeded to serve as secondary coach at Snow (Utah) Junior College in 1983 before becoming offensive coordinator at the school for the next three seasons. During his stint, he helped lead Snow to the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship in 1985.
He then served as passing game coordinator at Western Illinois for one year (1987), followed by offensive coordinator at New Hampshire (1988-90), quarterbacks coach at Boston College (1991-93), co-offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech (1994), and offensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech (1995). Crowton was elevated to head coach at Louisiana Tech the following year.
Among the standouts he has tutored are Luke Staley, who was the recipient of the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top running back and led the nation in scoring at BYU in 2001; Troy Edwards, Louisiana Tech’s 1998 Biletnikoff Award honoree as the top collegiate receiver in the country; Louisiana Tech quarterback Tim Rattay, who finished 10th in balloting for the Heisman Trophy in 1999; and Glenn Foley, who finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1993.
The former all-league quarterback at Orem High School earned All-America acclaim at Snow Junior College before completing his football career as a quarterback, wide receiver and defensive back at Colorado State in 1978. He then ran track for one year at Idaho State before earning his degree at BYU.
Crowton and his wife Maren have four daughters ? Tara, Jenessa, Mikauli, and Toriana ? and three sons ? Dane, Quinn, and Macloud. Crowton was born on June 14, 1957 in Provo, Utah.
LSU HEAD COACH LES MILES QUOTES
Opening Statement …
“I first want to confirm the fact that we have named Gary Crowton for the offensive coordinator’s job. I know that was speculation and was not confirmed. It’s now confirmed. I can tell you that I met Gary several years ago. I was in the NFL and studied his offense when he was with the Chicago Bears and knew of the success he had at LA Tech and watched his BYU teams. He moved the football at every level. He showed an inventive style. He used the players that he had and his personnel to his advantage, and I certainly thought that was, as well as the ability to throw the football, the key to this hire (at LSU). His background in this state, knowing the high school coaches and having a great reputation in this state will be invaluable, but more than anything, when you look to hire and add to a staff, you’re looking for integrity. You’re looking for a quality person, a person of value, and I’m very pleased that my first choice at offensive coordinator has now joined the staff, Gary Crowton.”
LSU OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR GARY CROWTON QUOTES
Opening Statement …
“It’s a pleasure for me to be here, and I’m very excited about LSU and working with coach Miles, the staff here and to be back in the great state of Louisiana at the university that’s just done so well here that I knew when I was at Louisiana Tech. I’m just excited about the players and coaches and everything. I left a great program at Oregon. I want to thank them and (Oregon head) coach (Mike) Bellotti was outstanding. The people were really good to me, but my family and I are really looking forward to getting a look at a lot of good things happening here at LSU. And again, I want to thank coach Miles for giving me this opportunity.”
On what the offensive scheme will be at LSU now …
“I think what will happen is the offensive staff will get together with coach Miles, and we’ll sit down and we’ll look at the things (former LSU offensive coordinator) Jimbo (Fisher) did. He did some outstanding things here. We’ll look at things he did. We’ll look at things that I’ve done in the past, (things) that coach Miles has done and all the offensive staff. We’ll kind of melt together what we think will be the best opportunity for us to score points and win football games with the talent that we do have here. That’s kind of how we’re going to do it. We’re not going to just come in and just take one offense that we’ve all seen, whether it be Jimbo’s, whether it be Oregon’s or BYU’s or Oklahoma State for that matter. What we’re going to do is meld them all together based on our personnel here and what we need to do in this conference to win.”
On the talented returning players on the offensive side of the ball …
“I’m very excited about the talent here at LSU. I’m excited about the possibility of great talent coming in this recruiting class too. Locally there are some outstanding players. I’ve coached some great players from Louisiana when I was at Louisiana Tech, and I’m excited about the few guys in particular that hopefully we’re working on here. Obviously we can’t say what the names are, but I’m excited about those guys. As far as the veterans that are coming back, I know that we’re losing some very good players, a couple of receivers (Dwayne Bowe and Craig Davis) that are probably first day guys (in the NFL draft), a quarterback obviously that everybody knows about throughout the country who is an outstanding person and leader in (JaMarcus) Russell, and I think it gives the opportunity for new guys to step up.”
“And we can see them on the roster, but right now after talking to coach Miles and the staff we want to make sure we think team first. And we want this team to develop the way it did in the past as a team that’s not selfish and a team that can win tough games and then we want to push for our goals. As far as individuals, I’m excited about all those guys, but I’m not really going to talk about any specific individual at this time because we want to think team first. But to be honest with you, I am very excited about them and especially about the new class that’s coming in the same time I am.”
On his offensive philosophy …
“The thing that you want to do from an offensive standpoint is you want to score points. It’s not always about the numbers. The numbers are a way to judge things, but scoring points is the key for an offensive coach. That’s my responsibility. The other coaches will worry about the defense and special teams, but that’s the number one thing is scoring points. Taking care of the football is important and using the talent that’s at hand. Sometimes there’s so much talent that you can’t get the ball to everybody.”
“But what we want to do is figure out who the right guys are, get the ball to them based on the defenses that we face, and we can do it in a lot of different ways. Play action pass. We can run it. At Oregon we were the Pac-10 leaders in the rushing game. I’ve been at the top of the passing game many times through my career, just whatever it takes to win, and that’s what we’re thinking about. Winning is the number one objective. Scoring points to win is my number one objective.”
On leaving Oregon to be the offensive coordinator at LSU …
“I was very happy at the University of Oregon. As I mentioned coach Bellotti was good to me and the people there. It was a very good program, and they’ve got a very good team coming back. But this (LSU) is one of the few jobs in the country that I would have left there to come and work at and also coach Miles is one of the few coaches that I would do the same thing for. And I have great respect for him. I know he is a hardworking, outstanding coach, good family man and great person, so that right there is something that really intrigued me along with LSU, with my familiarity with this state and being out here and having success when I was here is what brought me back.”