John Cotton is in his first season as specialists coach/assistant special teams coordinator at UTSA.
Cotton came to UTSA from UTEP, where he was the lead offensive analyst during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. He coordinated a punt return unit that led Conference USA and ranked third in the FBS in 2024, while he coached punter Noah Botsford, who finished ninth nationally in punting average (46.27) in 2025.
Prior to his tenure at UTEP, Cotton spent four seasons (2020-23) on the staff at Texas A&M-Kingsville, helping them produce back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since 2010-11. He coached linebackers and was the special teams coordinator for all core units. Texas A&M-Kingsville earned a spot in the top two in the conference for special teams in each of those years. He also spent time as a recruiting, video, equipment room and summer camp coordinator.
During the 2019 campaign, the Houston native served as quality control for special teams at Memphis. The Tigers won the American Conference Championship and played in the Cotton Bowl, finishing the campaign with a 12-2 record. Memphis ended the regular season ranked in the top three of ESPN’s Special Teams Efficiency Rankings.
In 2018 Cotton was a defensive and special teams graduate assistant at Marshall, with the Thundering Herd going 9-4 and winning the Gasparilla Bowl.
Prior to that, he was a defensive and special teams graduate assistant in both 2016 and 2017 with Hardin- Simmons in Abilene, Texas. The Cowboys finished as the runner-up in the conference both years on the way to punching consecutive appearances to the NCAA Division III Playoffs.
Cotton has mentored 15 all-conference players in four seasons as a position coach, including six who have grabbed first-team accolades.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Texas in 2015 and his master’s degree in education from Hardin-Simmons in 2018.