Greg Davis Jr., 35, enters his eighth season as Tulane's running backs coach in 2007, and will have a solid corps of backs to work with including senior Matt Forté, Tulane's top returning rusher, along with veterans Ray Boudreaux, Ade Tuyo and Andre Anderson.

Forté has posted three straight seasons with more than 600 yards, including a career-high 859 yards and eight touchdowns before an injury sidelined him for the final three games of the 2006 campaign. He already ranks among the Top 10 rushers in Tulane history and has proven to be a capable receiver as well, finishing as the Wave's fourth-leading receiver with 360 yards during his junior campaign.

Forté has followed in the footsteps of Tulane career rushing leader Mewelde Moore, who set 24 school rushing and all-purpose records during his career and finished his tenure at Tulane as the top rusher in Conference USA history. Now a running back with the Minnesota Vikings, Moore was a model student-athlete for the Wave.

In his additional role as coach of the Green Wave specialists, Davis worked with one of the school's and C-USA top punters in Chris Beckman, a first-team all-league choice averaged more than 43 yards per punt during his career and finished his Tulane career in second place on the school's record chart for punting average.

Davis also sent Tulane all-time leading scorer Seth Marler to the NFL in 2003. Marler kicked for the Jacksonville Jaguars as a rookie that season after winning the Lou Groza Award as the nation's best kicker in 2001. Davis welcomed rookie kicker Ross Thevenot to the Green Wave specialist corps in 2006. Thevenot earned the starting job, playing in every game and finishing second on the team in scoring with 50 points.

Davis came to Tulane from Alabama A&M, where he coached quarterbacks in 1999. He spent the 1998 season at the University of Texas as a quality control coach. In his year at Texas, the Longhorns won the Cotton Bowl. At North Carolina in 1996 and '97, Davis worked with the defensive backs on a pair of Gator Bowl championship squads.

Davis' name is familiar to Tulane fans as his father, Greg Davis Sr., is a former Green Wave head coach (1988-91) and is currently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Texas.

A 1989 graduate of Grace King High School in Metairie, La., Davis attended Nicholls State University, where he was a student assistant coach. Upon graduating from NSU in 1994, he went to Southeast Missouri State University, where he spent two years coaching the wide receivers and kickers.