COACHING STAFF: New roles for Bray, Locey

MIKE RILEY HAS made some changes to his staff -- Trent Bray goes from graduate assistant to full fledged assistant coach. Jay Locey will move from TEs coach to a new, non-coaching role as Riley's chief of staff.

Oregon State, which had five offensive coaches, three defensive coaches and a special teams coach last year will now have more balance -- four full-time coaches on both offense and defense along with the special teams coach.

Bray served as a graduate assistant coach last season. He spent the 2009-11 seasons as the linebackers coach at Arizona State, the last two as a full-time assistant after serving 2009 as a graduate assistant.

The move to a full-time assistant allows Bray to increase his recruiting skills for Oregon State.

Locey’s former responsibility as the tight ends coach will be handled by a yet to be named graduate assistant coach.

“We were very fortunate to have Trent as a graduate assistant last season and he proved what I already knew that he is a bright young coach who has a tremendous future in our business,” Riley said. “He is going to continue to have a major impact with the development of our linebackers and will be an outstanding recruiter for the Beavers.

“I’m very excited to have Jay in this new role. There is no better person than Jay to fill this crucial role because he has a great football mind, is an excellent communicator and has a genuine ability to connect with people.”

Locey just completed his seventh season as a coach, the last four with the position responsibility for tight ends and the previous three with the Beaver wide receivers. His new role includes the responsibilities of prescreening of opponents, team building activities, leadership development, career/job placement opportunities for OSU football student-athletes, Varsity “O” Football alumni engagement, fundraising, coordinating incoming football student-athletes into the summer BEST Program (high school to college academic/athletics transition), and high school and community relations.

Locey, who officially begins his new role July 1 pending final approval by the university’s administration, came to OSU after a tremendously successful career at Linfield College in nearby McMinnville. The five-time Northwest Conference Coach of the Year led the Wildcats to the 2004 NCAA Division III title and in 10 years as the head coach, guided the program to a record of 84-18, including a streak of 41 consecutive wins.

Bray started 34 of 49 career games at OSU from 2002-05, including 33 straight. He was the 2004 Insight Bowl Defensive MVP after making 10 tackles in the victory over Notre Dame. Bray was a Pac-10 Conference first team selection as a senior and second team as a junior. For his career he made 337 tackles, currently sixth in the OSU record book.