Facing a difficult decision? Contact Paul Shelton at UC Davis and ask the offensive coordinator for advice. If not for the tough call he made in 2024, Shelton would be coaching these days at a high school in Tennessee instead of devising a game plan for the Aggies’ season opener against Mercer.
This is the Tennessee native’s second stint at UC Davis. Shelton was the special teams coordinator from 2018 to 2022 before returning to his roots by becoming the head coach at South-Doyle High in Knoxville. He and his wife Sarah thought they were in the ideal place to raise their three children.
Shelton and Tim Plough were both assistants at UC Davis before Plough left in 2021 to become the offensive coordinator at Boise State and Shelton moved to Tennessee in 2022. Plough returned to become head coach in 2024 and called Shelton in hopes of convincing Shelton to also return.
That left Shelton with a difficult choice. He could stay put and pass on the best opportunity of his coaching career or uproot his family for the second time in three years to again coach with Plough. A conference call with Plough and his wife Christine persuaded the Sheltons to pack their furniture.
“I said ‘No’ the first time (Plough) called. I was out of college football and I was really at peace with that,” Shelton recalled. “Coach Plough tells this story that it wasn’t 30 minutes later and he had kind of already gotten over it and Christine said, ‘You get on the phone with him one more time.’”
Plough put all of his cards on the table in the second call. “He did his best recruiting pitch,” Shelton said. “He said, ‘We’re going to have stability here. We’re going to be here. We’re not taking this job to find another job.’ When he said all those things, that made us all at peace with doing this thing.”
The first call would have been enough to get most high school coaches to jump at the opportunity to be the offensive coordinator with a Division I team. Shelton was a tough sell because he enjoyed teaching and coaching at South-Doyle High in Knoxville. Sarah had also found work as an OBGYN.
“It was a lot sleepless nights trying to figure out exactly what the right move would be for me and the family,” said Shelton, who met Sarah at East Tennessee State in 2012. “It wasn’t a no-brainer because it was a lot of moving parts and I wouldn’t have done it if my wife wasn’t 100% on board.”
Christine had a vested interest in recruiting Shelton because she and Sarah are good friends. Each couple has three young children. The wives will never lack for company when their husbands are traveling to games. The Aggies left Thursday for Montgomery, Ala., and play Mercer on Saturday.
Shelton was put to the test after practice Monday when asked if he could name South-Doyle’s opponent on Friday. He won the bet of a burrito by saying Austin-East. “I’ve still have my guys back there,” he said.
His two years at South-Doyle were a blast, but UC Davis is a much better bet for his coaching future. “I’m the best version of myself when I’m at UC Davis,” Shelton said. “It’s awesome.”
