The Detroit Lions have promoted Brian Hudspeth to director of college scouting, a league source confirmed to The Detroit News on Friday.
Hudspeth joined the Lions in 2018 and was a national scout through last season, where he took on the role of assistant director of college scouting. He takes over the role left behind by Dave Sears, who took a role with the Arizona Cardinals this offseason.
He previously spent nine years as a scout with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2009-18) and five with the Houston Texans (2004-08). He got his start with the Atlanta Falcons in 2001 as a scouting intern and spent three seasons there (2001-03).
The Detroit News in January reported Sears, who served his role with Detroit since 2019, would be joining the Cardinals as assistant general manager under newly hired general manager Monti Ossenfort.
Based on comments made by Lions general manager Brad Holmes in March, it seems possible Detroit’s brass was keen on Hudspeth as the replacement from jump.
“(Sears is) an elite evaluator, in my opinion, so that was a big loss,” Holmes said. “But we do have an assistant college director in Brian Hudspeth and then we’ll just kind of make the right decision after the draft.”
Hudspeth, a native of New Albany, Miss., was a graduate assistant on the 1998 Tennessee Volunteers, which won the first-ever BCS National Championship.
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @nolanbianchi