Paul Simmons | Head Coach

AT HARDING
Paul Simmons is in his fifth season as head football coach in 2020. He had an historic first season as head coach, leading the Bisons to an 11-4 record, a berth in the national semifinals and an 11-game winning streak that included three consecutive road playoff wins over top-10 nationally ranked teams. Simmons followed that with two more trips to the NCAA Division II Playoffs in 2018 and 2019. He has a career record of 30-9.

Simmons is Harding’s 13th head football coach in program history and the sixth since the university restarted football in 1959.

Simmons spent the previous 11 seasons as an assistant coach at Harding, joining the staff in 2006. He became Harding’s assistant head coach in 2008 and the defensive coordinator in 2010.

Simmons has coached in 12 Harding postseason games, including the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 NCAA Division II Playoffs and the 2013 Live United Texarkana Bowl.

Simmons’s defensive linemen received 19 all-conference honors during his time coaching that position group. Defensive end Ty Powell earned All-America honors in 2012 and played three seasons in the NFL. Defensive ends Tre'von Biglow (2016) and T.J. Winslow (2018) received Great American Conference Defensive Player of the Year.

In Harding’s nine seasons in the GAC, Bison defenses have led the conference in total defense eight times, scoring defense and rushing defense seven times, and sacks six times.

Under Simmons’s leadership, Harding’s defenses set GAC records for total defense (3,119 yards, 2012), sacks (40, 2013), red zone defense (54.8, 2012), rushing defense (762, 2013), yards allowed per carry (2.0, 2013) and rushing TD allowed (5, 2014).

Harding has ranked in the top 10 nationally in rushing defense in five of the last seven seasons, including second in 2013 and 2016 and third in 2014 and 2018. In 2014, the Bisons allowed only three rushing TD during the entire regular season (two in the playoffs). In 2017, Harding was fifth nationally with 31 turnovers gained, and in both 2018 and 2019, Harding led Division II in scoring defense (11.3).

BEFORE HARDING
Before coming to Harding, Simmons coached at Harding Academy of Memphis for eight seasons, compiling a 51-38 record and leading the Lions to six state playoff trips. Led by Simmons, Harding Academy, who had never won a playoff game, advanced to the state semifinals four times.

Simmons served as a graduate assistant defensive line coach at Harding University from 1997-98.

He was defensive coordinator and assistant track coach at Harding Academy of Memphis during the 1996-97 school year.

PLAYING CAREER
Simmons was a three-time All-America honoree at Harding University as a linebacker and defensive end. He compiled 415 career tackles (second all-time at HU) and 18.0 sacks (fourth all-time at HU) and was inducted into the Harding Athletics Hall of Fame in 1999. Simmons is the only Harding football player ever to earn first team All-America honors three times.

EDUCATION
Simmons earned his bachelor’s degree in social science from Harding University in 1995.

FAMILY
A native of Ashdown, Arkansas, he is married to the former Kimberly Hatcher of Jackson, Tennessee. The couple have three children.