Skyler Cassity - Football Coach - Texas Tech Red Raiders

Skyler Cassity

Title:
Defensive Graduate Assistant

Skyler Cassity enters his third season as a defensive graduate assistant on the Texas Tech staff and his first under new head coach Matt Wells and defensive coordinator Keith Patterson. He works directly with the Red Raider defensive backs.

The Red Raiders were among the most opportunistic defenses in the country during Cassity’s first season on staff as Tech led the Big 12 Conference and ranked sixth nationally with 29 forced turnovers. Tech turned four of those turnovers into defensive touchdowns, which closed the 2017 campaign ranked eighth in the FBS. It marked the most defensive touchdowns for the Red Raiders since 2001.

Prior to his arrival in Lubbock, Cassity spent the 2016 season at Texas State where he was promoted from defensive intern to graduate assistant in only a year’s time. Cassity worked primarily with the Bobcats’ defensive line and also assisted in recruiting as Texas State signed the top class in the Sun Belt Conference in 2017.

Cassity moved to the defensive side of the ball at Texas State after working as a student assistant coach and recruiting assistant from 2014-16 at his alma mater, Auburn. Cassity assisted primarily with Auburn’s running backs as the Tigers won 25 games and played in three bowl games, including the 2017 Allstate Sugar Bowl, during his three seasons.

Cassity worked with three 1,000-yard rushers as part of head coach Gus Malzahn’s dynamic offense, including a pair of SEC rushing champions in Cameron Artis-Payne (2014) and Kamryn Pettway (2016). In addition, Peyton Barber also rushed for 1,017 yards in 2015 before signing an NFL free agent deal with the Tamp Bay Bucanneers. Artis-Payne, meanwhile, also joined the NFL ranks as a fifth-round selection by the Carolina Panthers in 2015.

A high school quarterback at Riverwood International Charter School in Atlanta, Cassity quickly gained a passion for coaching after he was permanently sidelined prior to his junior year due to needing the Nuss procedure for pectus excavatum. Riverwood head coach Robert Ingram immediately made Cassity his wide receivers and defensive backs coach due to his knack for quickly reading the field.

Cassity comes from a football-centric family as his father, Mike Cassity, spent 40 years coaching at the collegiate level, serving as the defensive coordinator at the likes of Kentucky, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Baylor and Cincinnati. Mike Cassity, a former football and wrestling student-athlete at Kentucky, coached in every major conference except the Pac-12 during his career as he was recognized by several publications as one of the nation’s top recruiters.

Two of Cassity’s siblings went on to play football collegiately as well as his older brother Hunter starred at safety for Samford University, while his younger brother Braden is currently a redshirt freshman defensive lineman at Oklahoma State. He also has an older sister, Brooke.

Despite his career-ending injury in football, Cassity played four years of lacrosse at Auburn where he earned his bachelor’s of science in business administration management in 2016. He recently obtained his master’s in sport management from Texas Tech during the May 2019 commencement ceremonies.