Adrian Shawn Bryson (born November 30, 1976) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. The ...

. He played college football at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

College career

Bryson played at the University of Tennessee under head coach Phillip Fulmer from 1995-1998. Bryson would contribute all four seasons as a running back and was a threat in the receiving game considerably in his junior and senior seasons. Bryson was a team captain on the 1998 National Championship team. In the National Championship, which was the

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been playe ...

, Bryson had three rushes for seven yards and three receptions for 34 yards in the 23-16 victory over the Florida State Seminoles. With the Volunteers, Bryson rushed for 505 career yards and eight touchdowns. In addition, he recorded 50 receptions for 484 yards and one receiving touchdown.

Professional career

After his collegiate career at the University of Tennessee, Bryson was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the third round with the 86th overall pick of the

1999 NFL Draft The 1999 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 17–18, 1999, at the Theater a ...

. He led the Bills in rushing in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

with 591 yards. In addition to his time with the Bills, he played for the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at For ...

for four seasons. After the 2006 season, Bryson did not play with another NFL team.

NFL career statistics

Coaching career

In 2012, Bryson was the fullbacks coach at Lenoir-Rhyne University. He was a graduate assistant at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptists, Baptist minister Russell Conwell an ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

and the running backs coach at Florida A&M in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. Bryson was the running backs coach at UT Chattanooga from 2015-2017. In 2017, Bryson was hired as the second head coach in the short history of the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School Eagles football program.

References

1976 births Living people American football running backs Tennessee Volunteers football players Buffalo Bills players Detroit Lions players People from Franklin, North Carolina {{runningback-1970s-stub