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Jay Johnson Position: Tight Ends

Jay Johnson, who spent last season as an administrative assistant at Louisville, was named an offensive assistant with the Cardinals. Johnson spent five years at Southern Mississippi, including three as the offensive coordinator, where he helped lead the Golden Eagles to five straight bowl appearances.

Under Johnson's guidance, the Golden Eagles established a school record for total offense in 2007 with 5,066, eclipsing the 5,000-yard plateau for the first time in school history. The Golden Eagles also finished in the top 25 in rushing offense in 2006 and 2007, rushing for over 2,000 yards in both seasons for the first time since 1987. The Golden Eagles averaged 27.8 points per game in '07 and 29.6 in '05, the highest totals since 1998.

Johnson also coached the school's third 1,000-yard running back in school history when Damion Fletcher ran for over 1,300 yards in consecutive seasons, becoming the only back in school history to accomplish such a feat.

Under Johnson's tutelage in 2005, Dustin Almond, had one of the best seasons ever by a Golden Eagle signal caller in 2005, as he set the single-season record for passing completions (216), passing attempts (392), and total offense (2,762), while throwing 23 touchdowns, the second most in school history.

In 2004, Johnson guided a solid stable of running backs, which averaged 144.9 yards per game, 22.8 more yards per game and six more rushing touchdowns than in 2003. Anthony Harris, Sherron Moore and Larry Thomas carried the majority of the load for the season.

He has extensive coaching experience and knowledge of several positions, including quarterbacks, receivers, defensive backs, running backs and tight ends. Johnson has honed his coaching skills at a variety of levels and schools. He started his coaching career at Columbia-Hickman High School in 1993, serving as the quarterbacks, receivers and defensive backs coach.

In 1994, he moved to Missouri as a graduate assistant coach, later moving to Augsburg College, serving as the school's offensive coordinator and recruitment coordinator from 1994-95, before moving to that same position at Truman State from 1995-97.

He directed Truman State's offense to an average of over 30 points and 400 yards a game during the 1995 and 1996 seasons.

He served as a graduate assistant at Kansas from 1997-99 and became its quarterbacks coach in 1999, serving in that role until 2001, when he moved to coach running backs and coached in that role before arriving at Southern Miss.

Johnson, a three-time All-Gateway Conference quarterback and four-time conference player of the week in his playing days at Northern Iowa, led his teams to a 31-8 record, and won three conference championships, while appearing in three national playoffs. He finished his career with almost 500 completions and threw for over 8,000 yards and 58 touchdowns.

He was elected team captain in both the 1991 and 1992 seasons. He quarterbacked the '92 team to a 12-2 record, a conference championship and the No. 3 ranking in the final NCAA Div. 1-AA poll.

Johnson also holds a variety of academic honors to go with his on-field prowess. He earned President's Academic Excellence honors in the Gateway Conference and held a perfect 4.0 grade point average while completing his master's degree at Missouri. That earned him a Superior Graduate Achievement Award from the Department of Health and Exercise48 2007 Southern Miss Footbal l Science, and he was a Dean's List scholar at Northern Iowa where he compiled a 3.47 GPA. He also taught several courses while at Truman State and Missouri.