{"id":749635,"date":"2026-02-13T16:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/749635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:21:14","slug":"cowboys-adding-smu-defensive-coordinator-scott-symons-to-christian-parkers-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/749635\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys adding SMU defensive coordinator Scott Symons to Christian Parker\u2019s staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/\">Dallas Cowboys<\/a> are hiring SMU defensive coordinator Scott Symons, two people with knowledge of the decision <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/calvinwatkins\/status\/2022334457018208361?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/x.com\/calvinwatkins\/status\/2022334457018208361?s=20\">told The Dallas Morning News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Symons, after five seasons at SMU, will join new Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker\u2019s staff as inside linebackers coach. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">SMU\u2019s resurgence over the last several seasons has been due in part to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/smu-mustangs\/2023\/11\/15\/smu-defense-had-high-hopes-entering-2023-now-scott-symons-has-mustangs-in-rare-company\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/smu-mustangs\/2023\/11\/15\/smu-defense-had-high-hopes-entering-2023-now-scott-symons-has-mustangs-in-rare-company\/\">Symons\u2019 efforts in revitalizing its defense.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Symons is a Dallas-Fort Worth native. He grew up in Hurst and graduated from Fort Worth Christian in 2004. He was a second-team all-state linebacker at FWC before he played at Lindenwood University.<\/p>\n<p>Cowboys<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__3beff secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-20 text-center text-gray-dark\">Be the smartest Cowboys fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Symons was the defensive coordinator at Division II West Georgia for four seasons before he took a job coaching inside linebackers at Memphis in 2018. After one year there, he was hired as the defensive coordinator at Liberty, where he was until 2022 when he joined SMU.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Symons is the sixth assistant hired to Parker\u2019s staff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/smu-mustangs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find more SMU coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Cowboys are hiring SMU defensive coordinator Scott Symons, two people with knowledge of the decision told&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[96665,230,229,257,2461,7,6,4710],"class_list":{"0":"post-749635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-christian-parker","9":"tag-cowboys","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys","12":"tag-dallascowboys","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-smu-mustangs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116064241818645620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}