Recruiting Areas: Shreveport and Northeast Texas
Other Duties: Academics liaison, Compliance liaison, golf tournament coordinator.
Coaching Experience: Promoted to associate head coach in early 2010, Laird has been defensive coordinator for the Demons for six seasons. He moved to coach safeties in 2009 after handling linebackers previously. Laird was the interim head coach after the 2008 season and was a finalist for the head coaching position before Peveto’s hiring. Laird returned to Scott Stoker’s NSU staff after the 2007 season to the defensive coordinator/linebackers coaching post which he held from 2003-05 including NSU’s 2004 Southland Conference championship season.
The shutdown ability of the Demons’ defense emerged in the second half of the 2010 season. Not coincidentally, NSU went on a four-game win streak and played for the Southland title and an FCS playoff berth in the season’s final game. In 2008, Laird’s Purple Swarm defense held five of the nation’s top 14 offenses, including four of the top six, below their season’s averages. Against four SLC teams in the top 14 (three in the top six nationally), Northwestern limited McNeese, Texas State and Sam Houston State (Nos. 4-6) and Stephen F. Austin (No. 14) to an average of 74 yards below their normal output.
Laird left the Demons following the 2005 season to enter private business, then returned to coaching in July 2007 as linebackers coach at NSU’s conference rival, Stephen F. Austin, working at SFA for one season. Under Laird, the Demons from 2003-2005 ranked second (2004, 274.7 yards allowed per game) and ninth (2003, 287.3 ypg allowed) nationally in total defense among all Football Championship Subdivision teams.
After a record-setting playing career at NSU, Laird coached on coach Sam Goodwin’s Demon staff in 1996, serving as the defensive graduate assistant coach working for Bradley Dale Peveto. He then worked for coach Don Shows at West Monroe High School in 1997, going on to coach at Ouachita High, Longview (Texas) High (under former FCS national champion coach Pat Collins) and Nashville (Ark.) High (under his father, Billy Laird) before joining Stoker’s staff as defensive coordinator prior to spring practice in 2003. He begins his 11th season in coaching.
While running NSU’s Purple Swarm defense from 2003-05, Laird’s units produced 75 turnovers in three seasons and set three NCAA records while leading the Southland Conference in total defense and rushing defense while also ranking highly in the national rankings in pass defense. In 2004, the Demons tied an NCAA FCS record by notching two safeties vs. Texas Southern. A year earlier, his defense set FCS records by allowing only 1 first down and a net of minus 1-yard offense to Oklahoma Panhandle.
Playing Experience: Laird was a record-setting quarterback for the Demons in his playing days. Laird set the NSU career pass yardage record by throwing for 6,037 yards from 1991-95, a mark he retains, and he also holds a school record with 113 consecutive passes without an interception. He tops the Demons’ all-time lists in completions (438) and attempts (761) with a 57.1 career completion rate and 19 touchdowns. In his senior season, 1995, he posted the third-best single-season passing total, 1,895 yards. He led Northwestern in passing all four years he played, including his true freshman season in 1992. He is the school career total offense leader (6,178 yards).
Laird was named in 2007 to the Top 100 Players in Demon Football History, commemorating the centennial celebration of NSU football. He completed 57 percent of his 761 career pass attempts and was the Demons’ season leader in passing all four years he played, including his true freshman season of 1991.
Laird played his high school football at Ruston High under Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame coach Chick Childress and was the 1991 Superdome Classic MVP for as the Bearcats won a second state championship with him at quarterback. He led Ruston to a No. 1 national ranking and was the first-team Class 4A (at the time, the state’s largest classification) All-State QB. He set career passing records at Ruston of 4,157 yards and 39 TD passes, at a school where 1976 NFL MVP Bert Jones also played QB. The Bearcats were 30-1 with Laird as the starter.
In January 2010, Laird was inducted in the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame along with four other state prep sports legends.
Personal: 38 years old, born 6/20/73. Laird has an education degree from Northwestern. Laird spent his early days in Natchitoches when his father, Billy Laird, was offensive coordinator for the record-shattering, NFL talent-laden Demons of the late 1970s and early 1980s under head coach A.L. Williams, when future pro stars like Bobby Hebert, Joe Delaney and Mark Duper shined for NSU.
Brad is married to NSU alumnus Renee, and they are parents of two children, Brianna (8) and Brock (5).
