Mark Hocke named S&C Coach at Texas A&M

As first reported today by Good Bull Hunting (everyone else reported it yesterday), Florida State’s Mark Hocke has been named the new Strength & Conditioning Coach at Texas A&M.

Hocke replaces longtime coach Larry Jackson, who has been in College Station since Kevin Sumlin took the head coaching job in 2012, and was also on Sumlin’s staff at Houston and coached with Sumlin at Oklahoma. Jackson is a 1995 Texas A&M graduate and seemed to be well-liked among players and staff, and it’s tough to see a guy like that go. But while he was known among his players as “Black Death” for his grueling workouts, at least part of the blame for the Aggies’ continued late-season collapses seems to have fallen at his feet, fair or not. While there was no formal announcement that Jackson had been let go, a job posting for the position appeared on Texas A&M’s website late last week.

The search for Jackson’s replacement was apparently short and ended with Hocke, who has quite the pedigree in SEC country. He served as the Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at Florida State in 2016 and was Director of Strength and Conditioning at Georgia in 2015, losing his job along with the rest of the coaching staff following the firing of Head Coach Mark Richt. Prior to Georgia, Hocke spent six seasons as Co-Associate Strength and Conditioning Coach at...wait for it...Alabama.

So pour out a protein shake for Larry Jackson and welcome our new weight room overlord, who no doubt will have our defense playing like Alabama’s by the end of spring ball.