Todd Lyght missed a phone call from his friend Marshall Faulk at 5 a.m. on a Sunday.
Lyght then received a text. Then another call that he picked up from the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, maybe he's in trouble,’ ” Lyght recalled.
Any ounce of worry quickly subsided when Faulk told him he was considering becoming the new leader of Southern football and had a request for his former NFL teammate with the then-St. Louis Rams (1999-2000).
“He was like, ‘Listen, I'm thinking about taking over this project,’ ” Lyght said. “ ‘I want you to be with me,’ and without hesitation, without even conferring with my wife, I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm in. Let's go.’ Just because we're so close.”
This was the genesis of Lyght becoming Southern’s defensive coordinator, bringing to Baton Rouge a 12-year NFL playing career (1991-2002) at defensive back, a Super Bowl XXXIV championship with the Rams (1999) and coaching experience at the high school, college and NFL levels.
Lyght, 57, is laser-focused on doing his part to restore the program’s greatness since the 2-10 debacle of last season. His dedication to excellence was felt as early as the conclusion of the team’s first workout. As every player took a knee, he delivered an unfiltered message on their abilities and then explained the standard the staff expects them to reach in the coming months.
“He didn't sugarcoat anything,” running backs coach Joshua Covington said. “That, right there, spoke volumes for me because you got some coaches who don't want to hurt the players' feelings. But he doesn't care about that, man. He cares about always telling the truth, giving it to them straight up, and letting them know exactly where they are, so there's no confusion.”
That balance was acquired through his years in football, which speaks for itself. After totaling 37 interceptions in 175 games and earning a Pro Bowl appearance (1999) in the NFL, he accepted various coaching roles.
He was the assistant defensive backs coach for the Philadelphia Eagles (2013-14), the cornerbacks coach at Vanderbilt (2015) and the defensive backs coach at Notre Dame (2017-19), his alma mater. He most recently was the defensive coordinator at Orange Lutheran High School (2024-25) in California.
Lyght said he left Notre Dame before the 2020 season to prioritize spending time with his family. When asked about the recruiting violation that involved his impermissible contact with a recruit in 2019, Lyght said the NCAA deemed that he violated the “bump rule.”
“(The NCAA has) a rule where if you come in contact with a particular student-athlete on campus, you can say hi, but you can't say anything more than that,” he said. “I had a conversation with them. They deemed it illegal, so I violated the rule.”
Lyght’s coaching opportunities came from his football savvy, command of players and work ethic. These traits emerged at his first college gig as a defensive secondary intern at Oregon (2011-12). They were noticed by John Neal, a former Oregon defensive secondary coach (2003-16 and 2019-20), who has since retired after 41 years in college football.
Neal said Lyght is the best NFL player-turned-coach he knows and the first guy he would call if he were a head coach.
“A lot of people might say ‘he was just your assistant,’ ” Neal said. “No, Todd was not my assistant. Todd was every bit my equal, and I learned a ton of football from him. … He was a big part of our success without getting any credit. Behind the scenes, he was really influential on the secondary.”
Oregon went 12-2 and won the Rose Bowl (2011) and went 12-1 and won the Fiesta Bowl (2012) under coach Chip Kelly.
Neal discovered Lyght’s sharp eye for talent once in practice. The two-time consensus All-American at Notre Dame (1989 and '90) told him that one of his Oregon cornerbacks would be an All-American someday.
“I go, ‘Why do you say that?’ because I didn't know,” Neal said. “I knew he was a good player, but (Lyght) just knew players, and he knew that kid was going to be special.”
That player was Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, who would later be a consensus All-American in 2014 and a seventh-round NFL draft pick in 2015.
Despite how accomplished Lyght was on the field, he’s not trying to share tales of his career after being the fifth overall in the 1991 NFL Draft.
Lyght was the “most humble superstar guy” Neal has ever coached alongside, he said. Covington said he’s “the most down-to-earth dude you’ll ever meet.”
When he’s not talking the X’s and O’s of the game, he’s just pouring into his players on and off the field.
“Even if it’s the smallest thing, coach Lyght is going to hold you accountable, because he knows what you're capable of,” Covington said. “He doesn't want you to fail. So I wish I had a coach like him when I came in playing.”
Lyght’s coaching pursuit is linked to a desire to be a teacher of the game, sharing all that he’s learned from several football minds. He soaked up many lessons from NFL Hall of Fame coach Dick Vermeil. The same is true with Bud Carson, the architect of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ legendary “Steel Curtain” defense from 1972-77, as his Rams defensive coordinator.
Current Saints senior defensive assistant Peter Giunta is another coaching influence. The former Rams defensive coordinator departed wisdom for Lyght to bring back to Southern after visiting him in New Orleans recently.
All that Lyght has accumulated over his life in football, he plans on using to help Southern return to the top of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
“Everything that I've done in my life has been geared toward winning, and so that's what I know,” Lyght said. “I win championships everywhere I've gone. I'm the type of person I hate losing, more than I like winning.”