South Alabama’s football program has announced the hiring of Tim Rattay as its new passing game coordinator and receivers coach. Head coach Major Applewhite confirmed the addition, highlighting Rattay’s experience as both a player in the NFL and a college coach.
Rattay comes to South Alabama after serving as an offensive analyst at LSU for one season. While at LSU, he worked with a group of receivers that included Aaron Anderson, Barion Brown, Chris Hilton, and Zavion Thomas—all of whom received invitations to the 2026 NFL Combine. Brown led LSU in receiving yards during the 2025 season with 532 yards. The team concluded their year with an appearance in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl.
Before his time at LSU, Rattay spent five years as quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma State. In 2023, he coached Alan Bowman to achieve the seventh-highest single-season passing yard total in school history (3,460). Bowman also ranked No. 15 among FBS quarterbacks for passing yards that year and was fourth in school history for completions with 304.
In previous seasons at Oklahoma State, Rattay guided Spencer Sanders through a competitive quarterback situation in 2022 before Sanders became the starter. That year, Sanders led the Big 12 Conference with an average of 303.3 total offense yards per game and was second among all FBS players in that category.
In 2021, under Rattay’s coaching, Sanders earned first-team all-conference honors at quarterback after leading the league with nearly 270 total offense yards per game. He was named PlayStation Fiesta Bowl Offensive MVP by recording 371 passing yards and four touchdowns along with 125 rushing yards on 17 carries—a performance that contributed to the largest comeback win in Fiesta Bowl history.
Rattay’s first season at Oklahoma State saw Sanders earn honorable mention All-Big 12 honors and Cheez-It Bowl MVP recognition.
Prior to his college coaching career, Rattay worked as quarterbacks coach for Washington’s NFL team (then known as the Redskins) in 2019. That season saw Case Keenum and Dwayne Haskins Jr. combine for over 3,000 passing yards.
Rattay began his college coaching journey at Louisiana Tech—his alma mater—as receivers coach from 2013 to 2015 before transitioning to quarterbacks coach from 2016 to 2018. During his six-year tenure there, Louisiana Tech won two division titles and achieved a perfect record in bowl games.
Notably, he mentored Ryan Higgins in 2016 when Higgins passed for more than 4,600 yards and threw for 41 touchdowns against eight interceptions—a performance that earned Higgins Conference USA Most Valuable Player honors. Later, Rattay developed J’Mar Smith into Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year in 2019.
His first coaching position came with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League from 2011-12.
As a player, Rattay transferred from Scottsdale Community College to Louisiana Tech where he set several records—including LA Tech’s single-season and career marks for passing touchdowns—and finished ninth all-time nationally for single-season passing yards per game (411.9) in FBS history. He was inducted into Louisiana Tech’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.
Selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the seventh round of the NFL Draft in 2000, Rattay played six seasons there before stints with Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Locomotives. He appeared in forty NFL games—with eighteen starts—and completed over four hundred passes for nearly five thousand yards and thirty-one touchdowns during his professional career.
A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Rattay graduated from Louisiana Tech in general studies (2001). He is married to Allison; they have three children: Riley, Taylor and Sloane.
