Dre Fusilier always knew that he was going to get an opportunity, he just wasn’t sure where it would be.

Turns out, it was a lot closer than he thought it would be.

Fusilier, the former NISH standout who spent five years playing college football at Grambling and then last season and spring football as a graduate assistant, was named full time running backs coach for the Tigers last week, his first full time college coaching position.

“It’s a great feeling,” Fusilier said. “I feel blessed and I’m thankful to the coaching staff to trust me with the position.

“I was surprised it happened. I was definitely groomed and prepped for this by my former running backs coach, Lee Fobbs. He was a legend himself so I have big shoes to fill. I fell like it’s my time now and I just have to seize the opportunity.”

Fusilier played football at Grambling from 2013-17 after spending four years at NISH where he was the featured back for former coach Rick Hutson.

“I’m super, super, super proud of him,” Hutson, now the head football coach at Highland Baptist, said. “I knew that he was going to end up in coaching. I knew it in high school.

“Most of us that go into coaching and an almost unlimited love of the game, it’s kind of an obsession of ours. Dre was one of those kind of kids. He studied film and he understood how good attitudes and bad attitudes affected the team.”

Hutson added that while at NISH, Fusilier made sure that players on the team were in the right frame of mind, which is a big duty for coaches as well.

“He understood that even as a player,” Hutson said. “He’s in a good place and Coach (Broderick) Fobbs is doing a great job of resurrecting that program.”

Fusilier had praise for his former high school coach.

“Coach Hutson really broke the game down for me,” the Grambling assistant coach said. “He always took time with the younger players to help them know more about the game and a lot of things that has helped me along the way started at NISH.”

Fusilier is now the second former NISH player under Hutson to join the college coaching ranks. Tulane assistant coach and former NISH quarterback Jordy Joseph was the first.

Having played running back in high school and college, Fusilier has an extensive knowledge of the position and can draw on that experience while coaching the new running back headed to Grambling.

Having graduated with his Masters degree in May, Fusilier was thinking about moving on to a new school to coach at before the offer to stay on staff in a full-time position came open and was offered to him.

“I thought about leaving and I had a few things working, but my heart was at Grambling and I had a great feeling about staying at Grambling,” Fusilier said.

While his duties will be with the running backs, Fusilier added that for the most part nothing will change from how he has approached his job at Grambling.

“I’ll still do what they need me to do,” he said. 

“That won’t change. I’ll help out where ever I can, including the new GA’s (graduate assistants) that are coming in because I know the ropes of that job and can pass on that knowledge to the new coaches.”

As for Fusilier’s future in coaching, he’s just trusting the process.

“I’m just taking it one day at a time,” he said. “There is a process and I’m trusting the process. Where ever God leads me to be, I’ll go.”